Searching for Aunt Effie

Aunt Effie has always broken my heart just a little bit. She was actually my great-aunt, Grandme's sister. My mother is her namesake (Effie Nannette). This portrait came from a black-and-white that I borrowed from Mama many years ago. I asked a wonderful photographer friend, Tina Cornett, to copy and hand-tint it for me. That's Aunt Effie standing in back, in the yellow dress. Grandme is on the far right, wearing a dress with a wide blue sash. I'm pretty sure the other girls in the portrait are childhood friends, including Mrs. Alvie Thompson on the far left. The photographer probably posed them this way, but I think it's interesting that three of these ladies are looking at my grandmother, who seems to be lost in her own thoughts, while Aunt Effie is looking down from above, like an angel watching over them.

She was in her late twenties when she died of tuberculosis. Many years later, when Grandme was in her 90s, my mother asked her if she would change anything about her life if she could. And she said, "I wish I'd been more like Effie." That surprised us because Grandme never talked about her sister very much. Mostly, she talked about farming and her beloved hero and father, "Big Daddy." So we've never known much about Aunt Effie except that family members who knew her always described her as being very kind and feminine (Grandme was a tomboy:) and a devout Christian. She attended the University of Alabama and taught school in Chelsea, Alabama, but her teaching career was cut short fairly early because of her illness. Her doctor recommended that she go to New Mexico, where the dry air might help her recover. Big Daddy took her by train to the National Sanatorium in Alamagorda and stayed out there with her. He took a job with the border patrol just to have something to do and turned his farm over to his sons while he was away. At some point, Aunt Effie was apparently moved to a Methodist sanatorium in Albuquerque, judging from the addresses on family postcards that Mama found and saved when I was just a child.

The postcards inspired a trip that I took yesterday with Mama, Aunt Grace, and Aunt Patsy. We had learned about the University of Alabama's W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library, which has Corolla yearbooks dating back to the 1800s. Some of Aunt Effie's postcards had pictures of buildings on campus and a postmark of 1913 or 1914—like this one to my grandmother, postmarked July 1913:

Dear Icie,

This leaves me fine. I got me some very low heel pumps and my feet haven't given me any trouble. Was glad you liked your dress. We are to have an entertainment the 4th, and I'm to wear tan and blue. So I got me a cute little tan trimmed in blue ($3). I think it very cute. I'm having a nice time. We had a rain here last night. If I could see you I could tell you lots of funny things. Love Mama for me. Tell Papa hello and all the others. I'll write a letter when I can.

Effie

At the Hoole Library, we found a wonderful (and wonderfully patient) archival access coordinator named Donnelly, who refused to give up as we went through yearbook after yearbook with no success. Finally, Aunt Patsy started going through a course catalog Donnelly had given us. When Aunt Patsy found something about "Summer School for Teachers," we remembered that all of Aunt Effie's postcards from UA had summertime postmarks. A little more searching took us to a listing of students for the 1913 summer session, and there she was: Effie J. Wyatt. So we think she probably didn't get a four-year degree but instead went through a couple of summer sessions to get her teaching certificate. We couldn't find her in the 1914 listing, but her postcards indicate that she was in school that year, so . . . another mystery to sort out.

What strikes me so much now, looking at the correspondence between Aunt Effie and her family, is how close they must've been. There's so much affection and "wish I could see you" in those postcards to and from Alabama. It seemed understandable to me, thinking she was away for a long time. But the summer session only lasted six weeks. Apparently, even that was a bittersweet separation, as Aunt Effie seemed to be enjoying school and yet missed her parents, brothers, and younger sister.

That longing for family gets almost too hard to read, once she becomes ill and the letters from home are addressed to "Nat San, N. Mex," rather than the University of Alabama. This one from Grandaddy McCranie, Aunt Effie's brother-in-law, is my favorite—but also one of the most heartbreaking:

My Dear Effie,

How's the girl today? Hope you are feeling fine and dandy. I am all OK enjoying life and having a good time always. Sure wish I could see you. Seems you've been away an age. You take good care of yourself so you can come back. Write me when you feel like it.

Love,

Guy

Say you sure have a sweet sister.  

When it became clear that Aunt Effie couldn't recover, Big Daddy brought her home from New Mexico. She died in June 1919. But she is not forgotten.

Comments

[candace hicks]

Thanks soooooooo much for finding the answers to my questions about our family.
I would love to have known Effie and Icie better.
That letter from Granddaddy has made me cry.
Love to you all.

[Valerie]

Love you!

[Kacey]

Wonderful. I adore that hand tinted portrait. I could look at it for years. Excellent story. *snif*

[Valerie]

Thanks so much! Tina always did amazing work. I had one tinted for me and one for Mama:)