Another Death in the Family
From the Obituary:
MULBERRY -- Mrs. Norma Virginia Dunn of Mulberry died of heart failure Monday (Dec. 19, 2005) at home. She was 89.
Born in Detroit on Sept. 9, 1916, she came to Mulberry from Michigan. She was a homemaker and a Girl Scout troop leader. She was a member of the Methodist Women's Club in Michigan. She attended Covenant Presbyterian Church in Lakeland.
Mrs. Dunn is survived by her husband, Marcel W. Dunn; daughter, Mary Ellen McElwain, Mulberry; stepdaughter, Marlene Smelser, Indianapolis; five stepgrandchildren; 10 stepgreat-grandchildren; one stepgreat-great-grandchild.
Memorials may be made to Good Shepherd Hospice, 105 Arneson Ave., Auburndale, FL 33823, or the Alzheimer's Support Network, 660 Tamiami Trail N., Suite 21, Naples, FL 34102-8133.
By Any Other Name ...
Grandma Virginia – as she was known in the family – was my grandfather Dunn's second wife. If I remember family history well enough, his first wife passed away in 1982, very shortly after my family moved to the small town of Three Rivers, Michigan.At the time, Virginia was our neighbor, and she quickly became known as "Aunt Virginia" to my older siblings. She was very attentive to our family, and she cared for us as if we were her own.
Eventually, Grandpa became friends with Virginia, and they were married just a couple of years after. At this point "Aunt Virginia" became Grandma Virgina to all but one of us. You see, my siblings were in their teens to early twenties when all of this happened. As for me ... I was three.
To me, Grandma Virginia was just plain "Grandma."