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| Jewel Seale Verrett (1905-1969) |
I didn't know my 2nd great-aunt Jewel Seale Verrett (my grandmother's aunt) very well. She was already an old woman when I was a little girl. The only thing I really cared to know about was that she sold scoops of sweet delicious ice cream to us after church. I'm sure she knew that those nickles she collected for those ice cream cones were meant for the church collection plate, but she took them anyway. Even though her house was only a stone's throw from Dixie Missionary Baptist Church, I don't remember her attending Sunday services. Her little house wasn't much to look at, but I was always fascinated by the little details it held. First of all, we had to climb over a fence to get into her yard. Well, we didn't actually climb, a set of steps had been built over the fence. So, we walked over the fence. The rooms inside the house were small and crowded with all matter of things. Some were interesting, other seemed a little scary to me. The walls were not covered with drywall or wood paneling. The studs were exposed and covered with wallpaper. There were pictures of people sitting erect and unsmiling staring at us. An odd wooden shelf built to fit perfectly in the corner of the room was filled with knick-knacks that look so delicate and were placed so precariously that the vibrations from a slammed door might cause them to crash to the floor.
I could tell that Aunt Jewel must have been a beautiful woman in her younger years. Even in her old age her caramel colored skin was firm and smooth. If I remember correctly, she had a few freckles sprinkled on each cheek and across her nose.
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| Aunt Jewel with her husband, Richard "Skitter" Verrett behind her |
Her hair, although almost completely gray, was always swept up and neatly styled on top of her head. A homemade apron usually hid most of the front of her print house dresses, but from behind even a child could see that her figure had once been stunning.
She was intriguing to me. I wanted to ask about the people in the photographs on her walls. Were they her children? Had those knick-knacks been gifts from relatives in far away places? I wondered. But I was a child and I was to be seen and not heard.
When going through some of my grandmother's things, I found these pictures of Aunt Jewel. I was immediately transported back to dusty dirt roads, warm Sunday afternoons, girls in white dresses, and Aunt Jewel's ice cream.
