| RETTA MILDRED BROWN
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| Aunt Retta on Mother's Day, 1956, in the home she shared with her mother, whom she cared for until Hattie's death at the age of 101. | Aunt Retta, taken in the little house on Main Street in Keithsburg, around 1969. | |||
| Poet,
writer, chef; buttonmaker, bootlegger, witch. Aunt Retta never
married, but was aunt and friend to four generations. She wouldn't
snitch on you, and she wouldn't tell your parents. It might even
have been her idea!
Aunt Retta wrote poems for the Dekalb D Corn Calendar, and a biography of her Uncle Jimmy, with whom she participated in séances. She taught herself to play the piano, among her many accomplishments. She was reported to "hear" you think sometimes, which I can personally attest to. It seems to run in the Gray-Brown line. She had 16 cats when she died, by most counts. It is said their descendants still wander the streets between 16th Street and the cemetery. |
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