When I was growing up our cousins from Maryland came to visit us every few years. Mel was a few months younger than I. We always had the very best times together. David and Sheila were great, too, but as with many older children everywhere, it was the cousin my own age with whom I had the most in common.
Mel was beautiful, though she did not think so. She was vivacious and friendly and just the best in every way. She was also tall and slim. At one point during high school she had gotten to 5 feet 11 3/4 inches tall. She was so incensed with the situation. She knew she would never get a date because she was taller than all the boys. She told me that if she reached 6 feet tall, she was doing herself in, because it just would not be worth it hanging around on this earth...Fortunately, either that did not happen, or she developed a better attitude, or maybe the boys began to get their growth spurts and realized a tall gorgeous slim girl was just the thing!
Between actual visits, and it was always the Maryland cousins coming to Vermont to "the farm" because dairy farmers have to be home to milk the cows twice a day, leaving no opportunities for vacations away from the farm, Mel and I wrote voraciously. As we grew to be teenagers we made plans to attend college together at San Mateo Junior College, now College of San Mateo. We were going to get jobs at United Airlines as hostesses or some such thing then we could fly home whenever we were homesick, though, we figured, how would we ever be homesick when there was a beach nearby?! Mel's father (who was my actual first cousin, Mel and her siblings being my first cousins once removed) worked at United Airlines so it was well-known all the benefits that would come to employees...I seem to remember there must have been a United hub in San Mateo, or at least nearby at that time. (This was more than fifty years ago so you can understand the furriness of my brain about specifics of the unimportant stuff...)
As it turned out when it was time for us to apply for college I had made some changes in my life. I had always been a Christian but when I was seventeen missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came to our home and taught us a gospel which answered some of my deepest questions. One of those questions was: How could a God who was without body, parts, or passions create this beautiful earth we have the joy to live on? That just did not make sense to me. The missionaries answered all my questions. So I applied at Brigham Young University and Mel got married, though it is not quite clear in my mind today if these events totally matched timing at this late date. Actually, I think she attended a college close to her home.
For quite a time during our "growing up young married years" we did not actually see each other but still kept up a correspondence. Those letters were always a joy to me. Eventually (1995) Dear One and I started attending the Washington DC temple pretty regularly as ordinance workers. What a joy that service was, and continues to be now in a third temple.
Often we stayed with Mel and her family when we were in DC. She had a great basement! She also had the best house with so many cool things in it from furniture to curios. Our log cabin had very few of those so I especially loved seeing Mel's and hearing about their provenance.
One of my favorite memories of those visits is the time Mel's husband, on her instructions, brought home a huge pizza, cut into 16 pieces! It was so good. Pizza was not a mainstay in our menu at that time so it was a real treat.
One year at Thanksgiving, our Maryland cousins, I think including Mel and her siblings, came up for deer hunting. My father set up tables in our kitchen/dining room/living room of all kinds (including some saw horses covered with pieces of plywood which Mother covered with sheets when the tablecloths were used up) and made benches for the occasion. We set 40 people down for dinner. Two turkeys and so many other fabulous things including mincemeat pie for which my great-grandmother, Julia Emily Burbank McIntosh, was famous throughout New England and beyond.)
Such lovely memories. What I don't remember is if any of the hunters (my cousins Aubrey, Rodney, Jimmy, and friend David who came with them often--these cousins being the age of my parents since they came from my oldest aunt, my father being third up from the youngest in his family) were successful in bagging a deer that particular year. I do remember one year that "Uncle" Jimmy (actually the husband of my cousin, June) as we kids called him for a while, then "Cousin Jimmy", went out to Raspberry Hill one evening and smashed up a few of the apples that had fallen off the apple tree on the other side of the stonewall lining the lane to Raspberry Hill. He walked out there before the crack of dawn and came home with a deer. Cousin Jimmy had the best laugh in the world! So infectious.
Isn't this an adorable picture?!! Such sweet dear faces. And just look at the darling clothes! Brings tears to my eyes with love for these children. Such wonderful memories of times together, whether in person or in letters. "Our hearts were knit together as one..."
Sadly, some years ago Mel, who had suffered from a variety of health problems, had been in the hospital with pneumonia. She came home from the hospital and passed on that very night. It just did not seem right. Still doesn't. Well, our eventual reunion will be so joyous.
