Aunt Bob

My mother had 4 sisters and 2 brothers and a half-brother. She was one of the oldest. Her older sister was named Mary Barbara Smith, and we called her "Aunt Bob". Here is a photo of the older children. Standing next to my mother Ruth, in the back row is Aunt Bob (on the right). The boy in the middle is William Joseph (Joe Bill, who died May 2007 at age 90), on his right is Ida who just turned 89 and the baby is Nellie Faye who died in 1985. Younger children were Amos (Pete) who lives in Elba and the youngest was a girl, Martha Ann (Polly) who died in 1992.


Now back to Aunt Bob (Barbara). She is probably the one we all remember best because we saw her more often.


At an early age, she started staying with our Papa Smith's sister, Daisey Winston who was an invalid following a stroke.


My earliest memories was of Aunt Bob was when we would visit her at Aunt Daisey's house and observe how she cared for Aunt Daisey.


I couldn't understand anything Aunt Daisey said, but Aunt Bob knew exactly what she wanted. They lived in a big house with a porch across the front where Dorsey Trailers now has a paved parking lot. Aunt Bob and Aunt Daisey spent a lot of time sitting on the front porch every morning and afternoon. There was a vine creeping up to the roof that provided shade from the sun. I remember that it was called a coral vine and had pretty pink blooms. I have a vine just like it and it brings back memories. Aunt Bob lived with Aunt Daisey for many years, until Aunt Daisey died in the 1950's.


By this time Aunt Bob was in her early 40's. She moved into a house nearby that Aunt Daisey's sons gave her, and her parents (my grandparents) lived there with her. She decided to become a nurse and entered nursing school in Dothan to be come a practical nurse. She graduated from nursing school and went to work in a Dr's office in Elba.


Then she decided to get married to someone she had known all her life, Roy McDowell. He was in WWII in the Pacific and when the war was over he came home and started working for the Ala Highway Department. We all thought it was neat that Aunt Bob had a boy friend. Neither had ever been married. So in their early 50's they decided to get married and the wedding was held at Aunt Daisey's son Roger's new brick home. In the meantime, her father had died from a heart attack and her mother was living with her. After Aunt Bob got married, her mother (my Mama Smith) went to live in the new Elba nursing home and she loved it there. She had friends around all the time. She lived to be 91.


Back to Aunt Bob. Uncle Roy died in 1975 with leukemia, a few years after their marriage. Aunt Bob had become friends with his sister MaryMcDowell Newton and the two of them became very close friends and where you saw one, you saw the other.

Aunt Bob loved to do handwork. She could crochet and knit and made all of her nieces sweaters and doll clothes. She made dresses for me and my sisters. I'll never forget the dresses she made for me to take to college. She helped me make my formal for the prom one year and for that I was so happy. We lived in the country and rode the bus to school. Sometimes I would walk to Aunt Bob's house after school and spend the night, especially when there was something taking place in town that I wanted to attend. My friends would come by and pick me up.


After we all grew up and moved away from Elba, we would always go to see Aunt Bob when we came back home to visit.


Aunt Bob checked herself into the Elba nursing home one hot day in August in the early 1990's when her air conditioner stopped working. She just packed her suitcase, called a taxi and never came back. She called to tell me her new address and new phone number.  She asked if I would come to Elba (from Albany, GA) and clean out her refrigerator!  Of course I did, and cleaned her house.  I thought she would be coming back soon, but she never did.  The house was flooded in March 1998.  


Several years later, Aunt Bob began to have heart problems and in October 1998, her heart just stopped beating one Sat. afternoon. I was with her at the hospital and left to go to a Grimes family cousins' dinner, to see everybody and told her I'd be back later. She died while I was gone, with my sister-in-law Carol in the room with her. She just closed her eyes and went to sleep, without a sound.


Aunt Bob was buried beside her husband in Evergreen Cemetery in Elba.