After the storm, we had folks leaving and other folks moving in. Among those who moved in was Miss Alma and her mother Myrtle and disabled son Steven who needed at-home supervision. They were great neighbors and I spent many afternoons chatting with Myrtle on her front porch and occasionally dropping her off at Arthur Mundy Center up the road. Myrtle holds a distinct place in my heart for the manner in which she was able to quickly shorten the span of 140 years. See, previous to this one afternoon conversation I didn’t give much thought as to just how much significance the Civil War had on today’s society in the social sense. But one day Myrtle told me that when she was a little girl she knew men who fought in that war. Granted, this 90 year-old woman was a little girl at the time and the men were older but, it was enough to shorten the time frame for me and changed my views on just how little social changes occur from generation to generation.
Both Alma and Myrtle’s houses flooded in the storm. Miss Alma had battled cancer and was in remission. Their contractors ripped them off and they were searching for them. Alma told me how much she loved the World’s Fair when it was here and had a large collection of souvenir pins that were lost in the storm. They eventually got her house rebuilt and we would occasionally hear from them and assumed all was well.
Godspeed Miss Alma.