In Profile: My Aunt Earnestine

I think what is going to happen is that I am going to profile all of the children of John Archie Bradson (J.A.B.)and Sadie Mae Goodson DeRamus, my grandmother and her siblings. Alas, I just profiled my grandmother because I had just gotten a recorded interview with her and hope to do another, better one. There is a lot of history there to be had. Alas, I think now I will profile my Aunt Earnestine. The oldest child of this couple, my aunt was also the darkest, something that she never was able to deal with and which she never learned to take pride in. Born in 1915, she is the only child of Sadie Mae and John Archie who did not recieve her education under the tutelage of Fess McDavid. She went to grade school and high school in Clanton, where she stayed and was mostly reared by her paternal grandmother, Grandma Fanny. It is because of this, that there was sort of a juncture between her and the rest of the siblings.

Married three times, Aunt Earnestine never had any children. Aunt Earnestine was a bit gawkish, somewhat innocent(I do think of myself in this description), and somewhat naive. One of the most hilarious and once in a lifetime moments was when my grandmother explained to Aunt Earnestine how two men are supposed to have sex. My mother had this case which involved an anal sex case and my aunt was totally befuddled by the idea. I could have died. As simple as she was, she was also educated. A principal for twenty years, a school teacher for forty, Aunt Earnestine had two master's degrees. This is why degrees don't really impress me all that much..Aunt Earnestine, for all of the education she had, didn't have the sense god gave a bird. It was something else when everyone found out that she was renting off the family property to cousins of ours for an unexcusably low amount because she felt it was her "Christian duty," even though they were living extremely well off of the deal. Another reason why I have no claim to Christianity. Aunt Earnestine was not very good with money, yet....and this I find absolutely befuddling...and yet ALL of her brothers and sisters allowed her to handle the DeRamus estate up until she wasn't able to simply in deference to age and seniority. Its by the grace of god that nothing bad actually happened. Anyway, such is the spice of life.

Alas,Aunt Earnestine, as I said, was married three times, divorced twice and widowed once in a d-w-d order. She lived most of her life in the home of her parents, with the brief exception of her moving to Cleveland during one of her marriages. She was a very well-loved teacher and person. In 1997, the people in the community threw an "Earnie Day" celebration in which her students--from over the span of her forty year career paid tribute to her. It was a wonderful ocassion.

Aunt Earnestine was always good to me. I remember very few words of reproach coming to me from her. Everyone's favorite thing to do was to sleep in Aunt Earnestine's tall, high-backed old fashioned bed under her mountain of quilts. She always had candy or cookies or something for us children, and for me, she gave me her collection of bible books when I was a little boy. Aunt Earnestine taught sunday school as well and was very good at it. I used to ride with her to church on sundays in her old blue volkswagen and help her set up for church and sunday school. She was a teacher, a sunday school teacher, a church Stewardess, and many other things. Up until she wasn't able to she also kept a garden in which the best things would grow. I remember one year she made the paper for growing the largest pumpkin in the county. When I was a little boy, she kept chickens and tons of cats constantly around her house.

Aunt Earnestine was an incredible human being. Filled with much love, but also a complicated person with her share of faults and problems. Her death definitely left a void in many lives.