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K N F A Classy Person: Aunt Jack Granny Frost had three children, my mother Hattie, her sister Irma Lee, who for some reason we called Aunt Jack, and Aunt Jack’s twin, Bolen. Aunt Jack was a classy lady. She was childless. And we were always impressed with her because she didn’t have kids. Instead she had lots of things. She was beautiful like Mommy and she dressed in elegant dresses and hats. She was neat and tidy. Even when hard times set upon her, she would sew every button just right. She had the Frost sense of humor, and she was independent acting, a liberated woman. Of course I didn’t know the word then—they hadn’t invented it—but she had an extra energy . I always thought, “Boy, she can do things on her own! Boy, is she smart!” Aunt Jack was also a fine musician, played the mandolin and guitar with Mom and Dad in the twenties when they made those recordings. A Classy Person: Aunt Jack 14 / pressing on “Did you play real good, Aunt Jack?” I’d ask her. “Naw,” she’d say, “I just faked it. I’d just run my fingers up and down, and they’d think I was playing good.” Her husband Smitty was born in New York and he worked as a writer for a New York newspaper though they lived in Washington, D.C. I would stay with them sometimes. She would be trying to help me by taking me out of that one-room shack and teaching me about the city. Well, one thing she taught me was that there was a city—a place where the roads go straight, not winding around! And she taught me about such delicacies as having bananas in cereal. She died a tragic death. One day when we kids came home, Momma said that Aunt Jack had gone to the hospital. An ambulance had come and gotten her because she was burned up in a kitchen fire. Right away we went tearing over to the hospital. The doctors made us stay in the front area of the hall. They wouldn’t let my mother in the room. But I broke away and ran right down the hall, looking in at the people, trying to find Aunt Jack. And there in this one room was—looked like a lobster, this woman. I wasn’t sure if it was her, this thing sitting up in the bed. She was pure red. There were blisters on her hands sticking up, and her fingernails had been burnt off. Horrible, God, it was horrible! “Hi, Roni,” she said. “Aunt Jack, is that you?” “Yes, it’s me.” “Oh, Aunt Jack!” She stared at me. “It’s a hot time, Roni,” she said. “It’s a hot time in the old town tonight .” The next day she was dead. Her lungs had been burnt too. That’s what killed her, bless her heart. She was a wonderful, wonderful lady. ...

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