The Older Woman Who Taught the Younger One

My Aunt Nan was one of the women who taught me how to be a woman. To me she was the ideal homemaker. Her home was beautiful.

Nan and Jerry's — Ray, John, Bethany, Mary Evelyn, and I gather with my parents, seated in chairs, and my brother Steve, his wife Betsy, and their daughter Ashley in the home of my Aunt Nan and Uncle Jerry during a Christmas celebration in the mid-1990s.

My Aunt Nan sewed beautifully. She cooked amazingly. Her garden was bountiful, and she canned and froze its produce to feed her family for the winter. She was artistic, creative, and resourceful. She even won a national award one time through her involvement in her Home Demonstration Club. When I was a girl, our family drove the three hours between Ashland City and Crossville often to visit Aunt Nan, Uncle Jerry, and our cousins Tina and Chris. When we were there, she was graciously hospitable.

My Uncle Jerry adored my Aunt Nan. For 63 years, he adored her. And when she graduated to Glory, Nan and Jerry were home alone together.

*Uncle Jerry and Aunt Nan came to our home to celebrate Thanksgiving in 2012.*

My mother adored her sister, too. Just two years apart, they were close their whole lives.

My mother and her siblings all stayed close. I have seen many pictures of the four of them through the years. Their spouses joined them in this one c. 1970.

Aunt Charlene and Uncle Joel, Aunt Lavon and Uncle Billy, Aunt Nan and Uncle Jerry, Mama and Daddy, celebrate Christmas at my teenage home, c. 1969. — *From left to right: Aunt Charlene and Uncle Joel, Aunt Lavon and Uncle Billy, Aunt Nan and Uncle Jerry, and Mother and Daddy celebrate Christmas at my teenage home, c. 1970.*

*Aunt Lavon, Mother, Aunt Nan, and Uncle Joel at a family reunion in 2015.*

My Aunt Nan knew how to make little children feel special. She made grown-ups feel special, too. Through the decades, she always called me “my girl.” “How’s my girl?” she would ask when she saw me. And when we parted, it was: “Come to see us!” and she meant it.

Aunt Nan and Her Girl in Our Kitchen in 2012 — *Aunt Nan and Her Girl during the Thanksgiving Season in 2012*

I loved going to Aunt Nan’s for a week in the summer. I remember making chocolate chip cookies and her sending the recipe home with me. Once we made a nativity wall hanging. It was hanging in Mother’s living room when we moved her in with us. This Christmas it is hanging in ours.

*Nativity created with my Aunt Nan when I was a girl.*

My Aunt Nan was beautiful, and she was careful to stay that way through the decades.

*My Aunt Nan was 77 when this photo was taken six years ago.*

My Aunt Nan loved Jesus. When I was baptized as a girl, her heart was filled with joy and she spoke to me with such faith and encouragement. She was a servant. She was her church’s librarian for many years.

My Aunt Nan valued me and loved me. Value and love are of immeasurable worth in the hearts of children; so are godly teaching and a godly example. My Aunt Nan gave me all four and I am grateful.

Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior,
not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine,
teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women
to love their husbands, to love their children,
to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind,
being subject to their own husbands,
so that the word of God will not be dishonored.
Titus 2:3-5

That is what my Aunt Nan did for me.

The Older Woman Who Taught the Younger One

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