American Association for Women in Community Colleges

Salute to Strong Women
Stacey O'Brien

A woman who had a lot of influence in my life was my great-aunt Verna. She was a short, round woman who had her hair styled weekly, wore polyester dresses with sensible shoes and carried a clutch purse. She powdered her face, wore pink lipstick, clip earrings and pearls and smelled too heavily of lilac perfume. She drove a blue Chevy at least 10 miles per hour under the speed limit, never raised her voice and bought stock in IBM.

Verna never married and lived with her mother until her mother passed away. Verna was the sister to my grandfather, Lyle, who owned a small business. For years, she worked for my grandfather as his office secretary. Whenever I spent time with Verna, she would take me to the office, put me on a spinning stool and let me type away on one of those big black Selectric typewriters. When I grew up, I wanted to work in an office and answer the phone just like Aunt Verna!

She was also a part-time piano teacher and an active member in her church, where she played the organ every Sunday. Whenever I spent the night with her, she would teach me a song on the piano (unfortunately none of that teaching stuck with me) and let me finger paint. I had my own ‘art center’ at her house with every kind of paint, marker, and crayon. Every Mother’s Day, she took me to her church for the annual Mother/Daughter Luncheon and showed me off to her friends.

As I got older, I mowed her yard using one of those old fashioned push-mowers that was “person powered” and pruned her rose bushes. And afterward we sat in the shade and drank lemonade. We also did lots and lots of rummaging at back yard sales. We went school shopping every year, and without fail, we went to a mom and pop shoe store called Grundman Shoes in Indiana (it still exists) – the kind of store where the owner sits you in a big chair, measures your feet, and brings out three or four types of similar brown shoes; I hated those ugly brown shoes but they were “sensible and of good quality.” She bought me school supplies, sent me to church camp and bought me my first pair of glasses.

Growing up, I simply thought of Verna as an “old auntie.” Now I see that she exposed me to important values such as family; church; career; music and art; hard work; and the idea that one person’s trash is indeed another person’s treasure. She was my own personal fairy godmother and I am a better person for having had Aunt Verna as part of my childhood.