2003-03-12 - 11:13 p.m.

The Last of Annsie

Something curious and sad happened yesterday.

It started with a phone call from a woman who said her last name was Peterson. She was the daughter of my late aunt Annsie's husband. She had two boxes of photos from Annsie's house and she wanted to know if I wanted them. She happened to be in town visiting her sister, and she wanted to drop them off in person. I made an appointment to meet her down at the store later in the day.

It's a sign of the times. This woman was a sort-of relative to me, but I have no idea of what to call her. She was the daughter of aunt Annsie's husband by a previous marriage, which would make her my aunt's stepchild, and would make her my... step-cousin? I have no idea.

By the way, for backstory fans, I told the story of my aunt Annsie here, here, here and here.

Re-reading those entries, I spot an important factual error - Annsie's husband died in 1976, two years before her mother did. I am not so good with chronology.

At the appointed time I went down to the store to meet Mrs. Peterson, who told me to call her Barbara. She was a tiny woman of about fifty with dark curly hair. I noticed that she spoke with a little bit of a Midwestern twang. As it turns out, she was from Wisconsin, don't cha know?

We looked through the two boxes of pictures together. There were lots of shots of Annsie's father, my grandfather. Well, Annsie idolized him so that wasn't much of a surprise. There were some old shots of my family, but they were copies of other photos I had in the attic. There also were some more recent photos of people I didn't recognize. I asked Barbara who they were and she didn't know - her side of the family had already been through the photos and took out what they wanted. To my surprise, among these pictures I found a framed picture of my sister Janis, which was odd considering that Annsie didn't like Janis at all. It was a shot of Janis sitting on a couch, talking to some people off camera. I hope Annsie didn't look at the picture too closely, because among the junk on the coffee table in front of Janis was a bong. Typical Janis.

While we were looking at the pictures the talk got a little more personal. As it turns out Barbara had an experience with Annsie similar to mine, but she had more information since she had more direct contact with her and the other side of the family.

Barbara's parents had separated in 1958, but didn't get divorced until 1971. Annsie had been her father's girlfriend from 1964 on, and perhaps she found it galling that it took him so long to get divorced, and that she only got five years of being his wife before he died.

She also told be something I'd sort of guessed - her father was an alcoholic and an abuser. Annsie was a drinker too, in fact she remembered visiting them at home and seeing a case of empty vodka bottles. I'd heard from Annsie's lawyer that she was quite a drinker, and that she'd be impossible to talk to for weeks at a time.

After her father died in 1976, Barbara had sent a sympathy card to Annsie, but it came back to her with "return to sender" on it in Annsie's handwriting. That was pretty cold. After that she didn't hear a peep from her until late 2000 when she got an Xmas card from her. Her interest piqued, she startd corresponding with her, just like I did. She was mainly curious about her father, and wanted to get a sense of closure with his memory, but Annsie was having none of that. She said point blank she did not want to hear anything bad about Mr. Peterson. Toward the end of the correspondence, Annsie got cranky, just like with me.

Barbara also had a better idea of what Annsie's life was like in her last years. She'd had some long conversations with one of Annsie's cousins who'd actually dealt with her estate. Annsie had plenty of money, but the house she lived in was a wreck - piles of junk everywhere and the house badly needed repair and remodeling. Annsie was a sad, angry old lady, no longer able to take care of herself.

Barbara also reminded me of something else - besides the stock that was distributed, the main beneficiary of Annsie's will was a local doctor, and from Barbara's anecdotal evidence he seemed to be mainly in it for the money. He was haranguing Annsie's relatives after she died, claiming that there had to be more jewelry than he found. A lovely fellow from the sound of things. She asked me why I didn't contest the will, and I said that I felt that Annsie had the right to dispense her estate as she saw fit. To my ear she sounded cranky, but competent.

I think I mentioned that Mr. Peterson's elder sister, now almost 90, got a big chunk of Wal-Mart stock. I remember hearing that it was worth over two million (!) dollars, but Barbara's impression was that it was a much more modest amount, like $70,000. Well, this information was irrelevant at this point. Barbara's elderly aunt was senile and in a nursing home, and not really able to appreciate whatever amount it was.

We also did some talking about our own families, and about how the fallout of the dysfunctional, alcoholic relationship was affecting us years later. For example, like myself and my siblings Barbara and her sister have no children. When families mean nothing but pain, you are not really too keen on creating another one. A mystery that will never be solved: what was so toxic about my mom's family that things turned out the way they did?

It certainly was sobering to think that both sisters ended up very much alike: all alone in a big house that was falling down around their ears. I know my Mom got a measure of peace before she died, but its obvious that Annsie got nothing like that. It just seems like such a waste and such a pity. Annsie was a bright, ambitious woman who got eaten alive by booze and bitterness. It didn't have to happen that way, it but it did anyway.

Sometimes, I get the feeling that life isn't all that funny.