They Called Her an “Old Maid”
The tragic story of Aunt Bernice
Aunt Bernice was my mom’s younger sister. Born in 1921, she was the second of four children born to my grandparents. She grew up on my grandpa and grandma’s mink and fox farm along with my mom and her two other siblings, my Aunt Jeannie and Uncle Jimmy.
My grandma and grandpa were strict Polish Catholics and raised their children according to their faith, which generally meant meting out whippings with my grandpa’s belt when rules were broken. He was going to make sure their children went to Heaven whether they wanted to or not. He was no one to mess around with.
I’m not sure if he ever saw the hypocrisy in raising his family by such strict standards, while he himself drank heavily and ran moonshine during Prohibition. Surely the Lord would forgive him for the six months he served in federal prison for violating the Volstead Act.
Bernice graduated from high school in 1939, the same year my parents were married. In the years that followed, she continued to live at home with her parents, though she did spend a year in Minneapolis to attend school. When she returned from Minneapolis, she took a job at the local drugstore, a job she never left.
In 1942 she was crowned the Queen of the Winter Carnival in our hometown. It was a huge event with…
