On the road again! We left Bar Harbor on another beautiful day and headed to Portsmouth. On the way we engaged in one of my favorite hobbies -- cemetery exploring! I have explored many cemeteries in New England, and have found many ancestors. I know this sounds maybe a little creepy to some, but it's very interesting speculating about the lives that were lived before this final resting place, and what happened to these people. When I see a marker with a 25 year old mother who dies 5 days before her 8 month old son, it makes me sad and grateful. I'm not sure what disease took these two in 1889, but am pretty sure it wouldn't do the same today.
We were searching for the marker for my great-grandfather, Michael J. Cody who died at age 31 in 1911 (his wife died at age 26 in 1905, sending their daughters to an orphanage). He is buried in Mt. Hope Cemetery in Lewiston, ME. Unfortunately, on a Saturday we had no reference and no one to direct us, so we set off looking through thousands of headstones in search of MJC. We got in a lot of steps, and saw some interesting gravestones, but, alas, we did not find MJC. We did find a few other Codys, and now I'll do some investigation to see if they're related.
When we got into Portsmouth, I did some more research and found a map to the cemetery. I guess I could have done this ahead of time and saved us a few steps! Oh well. Maybe next time!
Then we headed on to Portsmouth! We checked into the Hotel Portsmouth, a new boutique hotel, very cool and apparently haunted! (Note to self: request Room 212 again -- perfection), and then immediately walked to the River House for an early dinner. Mimi had the seafood chowder and a lob-dog (not a day without lobster so far!), and the view from the deck was spectacular. After a walk through town we headed out to Aunt Betty's.
Stopping by Aunt Betty's has been a first-day-in-Portsmouth tradition for as long as I've been coming here as an adult. Let me digress with a little info about Aunt Betty. Because my parents were both only children, I don't really have a lot of blood relatives (maybe an insight into my fascination with genealogy). We have been blessed with many "fake" aunts, uncles, and cousins -- many of whom have known my parents since childhood -- by few related by blood (more about them later). My Uncle Bill was my Dad's first cousin with whom he was raised, often in the same house. Their mothers were sisters (the little girls who were orphaned in early childhood -- see the Codys above), and had very difficult early lives, but spent most of those lives together. So my Dad and his cousins often lived together and grew up together. We visited Uncle Bill and Aunt Betty throughout my childhood, but until my adulthood I never had an appreciation for Aunt Betty. She was deaf since childhood, but no one really acknowledged this in those days, so she said that people just assumed she was stupid. In her adult life, many people talked around her, and left her out of conversations. But I'm so grateful to have come to know and appreciate her. Aunt Betty was true New England stock. My Uncle Bill died in 1997 and my sister Liz and I flew back for the wake and funeral. Our flight was late and we drove straight to the wake, which had been in full swing for a couple of hours. We were frazzled and sad and nervous, but were immediately settled when we walked in to find Aunt Betty greeting everyone in her bare feet! Well into her 80's, she was shoveling show off her roof and mowing lawns for the "old folks." She took up painting late in life and created beautiful scenes of New England life, and gave most of her paintings away. When you arrived at her house (usually unannounced), you could count on freshly baked cookies or pie, and a bucket of toys for the kids to play with. We once arrived at her house to find her standing, barefoot, on the back of the couch cleaning the windows (she was in her mid-80's). Another time, after another "aunt" had told us, "Betty's not getting around very well," we walked into her house with trepidation, only to find she was cleaning behind the refrigerator, which she had dragged out herself! Aunt Betty was a walker. She walked around town helping everyone. In her late 80's, she fell a few times but that did not stop her. She started walking with knee and elbow pads! When she was nearly 90, Aunt Betty lost her leg to peripheral atherosclerosis. She kept plugging along, scooting on her butt up and down her stairs, still cooking and helping others. She was interviewed for the local papers and said, "I don't have much to crab about. No one wants to talk to crabby people." We visited with her in July 2012 and took her to Ray's for dinner (she always thought that was too extravagant, and that she'd be fine with McDonald's).
Aunt Betty died 3 months later, but left a legacy of giving and living and loving without complaint. I will miss her forever, and will try to do what her grandson suggested at her funeral: The best way to honor Betty's life is to try to live like Betty lived -- working hard without complaint, giving to others, and appreciating every moment.
We walked to Aunt Betty and Uncle Bill's house. Their daughter and son-in-law, Patty and Bob, have remodeled the house since Aunt Betty's passing. I was so worried that that house I'd known my whole life would not feel the same. Although it'll never be the same without Betty and Bill, I was so happy to see that the remodel was beautiful and retained the integrity of the old house. Patty and Bob welcomed us (again, unannounced!), and we had a lovely tour and visit. The house still has the same unbelievably steep staircase and Aunt Betty's paintings all around. The new addition is beautiful, and I'd like to think Betty would approve (although Patty showed us the chair she bought when Aunt Betty came home from her amputation surgery. Patty said Betty's favorite chair had become tipsy and sunken-in, and so she bought her the new, more comfortable rocker, slider. Betty refused to sit in it!).
So today was a mix of the old and the new, and although nostalgic and a little sad, it was another wonderful day. I am reminded of the blessing of family, and of those adopted family members, related by shared experiences and love.
