Aunt Gladys and Lucy#1 got off to a potentially rocky start. Aunt Gladys was 14 and it was Valentine’s Day when Grandma went into labor with Lucy#1. Aunt Gladys was supposed to attend a party that evening, but Grandma made her stay home with her younger siblings so Grandma could go to the hospital.
Aunt Gladys was so irritated by this unfair situation that she vowed to make her mother sorry – by completely spoiling the baby. Little did that teenager know, but she was shooting herself in the foot!
Lucy#1 had but to wave one tiny hand, and Aunt Gladys was there to cater to her every baby whim. As the baby grew into a toddler, Aunt Gladys continued to spoil her. When Lucy#1 was two years old, she would meet the boys Aunt Gladys dated at the door and demand candy. If they didn’t give her candy, she would throw a fit and say Aunt Gladys couldn’t go out with them. Once, a boy had to give Lucy#1 a nickel before Lucy#1 would quit yelling and Aunt Gladys would leave the house.
Aunt Gladys married young, when Lucy#1 was three or four. Fortunately, the newlyweds stayed in town and, equally fortunately, the town was very small. Lucy#1 would run away from preschool and walk to Aunt Gladys’s new home, and Aunt Gladys would almost always let her stay all day. Sometimes Aunt Gladys would have to go over and tuck Lucy#1 in at night before she would consent to go to sleep. Spoiled!
Little Lucy#1 sometimes insisted on spending the night with Aunt Gladys and her new husband, and would then insist on sleeping with them. Uncle Arthur was a saint of a man who took the intrusion of a small and very ornery child into his newlywed life in stride. Just like his wife, he kind of shot himself in the foot on that one! Lucy#1 had the run of their household until she left Florida to join the Air Force when she was 19.
When Lucy#1 married, Leroy heard a lot about her family and, of course, all about Aunt Gladys and Uncle Arthur, but he was most definitely not expecting the reception he received. When Lucy#1 brought her new husband to meet her family, they arrived in the middle of the night. Early the next morning, Lucy#1 heard the phone ring, then Grandma knocked on the bedroom door and announced that Gladys had called and was on her way over. Lucy#1 leapt to her feet and pulled the covers up to cover Leroy to the neck. She barely got him covered before the bedroom door burst open and Aunt Gladys ran in and threw herself onto the bed with him. She grinned at a startled Leroy and said, “I’ve been waiting almost 20 years for this day! Lucy#1 spent a lot of time in bed with my husband. Now I’m in bed with hers!”
