​Remembering our dear maiden aunt, Margaret Pollock

Ben, this is especially for you, since these thoughts came to mind while we were reading “Anne of Green Gables.”

Marilla had never had children or even been married. Like Anne, we could use our imaginations to picture what she was like as she grew up. What did she do for fun? Did she have a boyfriend? Why didn’t she get married? We can be sure she helped her parents in the house and in the fields and looked after them as they grew older.

After they died, she shared the responsibility of maintaining Green Gables with Matthew. She was a meticulous housekeeper, according to Mrs. Lynde. She sewed and knitted and was involved in community activities. All in all, she was a typical spinster as she would have been recorded in census records.

The only “maiden aunt” that I remember, was my Grandpa Pollock’s sister, Margaret. She was born in 1879 and she already had five brothers and five sisters. She was really the 12th child because the baby born before her had died at about six months of age. Before she was three, another brother arrived and then Grandpa who was five years and one day younger than she.

My first memory of Aunt Margaret is that she was profoundly deaf. She was not born deaf; so what happened? Well, one winter day, she and several of her brothers and sisters were sick with the red measles. I am sure some of them should have been in bed but they were well enough to be playing games upstairs in the big brick house where they lived on the Shore Road in Huron Township.

As their games became rowdier, they grew warmer. So they opened the windows at either end of the long hall. We have always believed that the cold winter air resulted in the deafness of varying severity in these children. Aunt Margaret learned to lip-read and, I imagine, lived a fairly normal life.

Two years ago, I found quite an unexpected story about her. She became engaged and her wedding was planned. On her wedding day, as she was putting on her hat, she heard the Lord speak to her, saying “Margaret, you are making a mistake.” So she called off the wedding! She was the only one in the family who never married.

For a period of time, she lived with her sister and her family in Toronto and then in a “home” of some kind. Eventually, she began to develop dementia and she moved to a tiny house in Kincardine with a companion to care for her. Grandpa was in charge of her affairs and he worried about her a great deal. Sometimes, she would wander away if not watched carefully and someone would call Grandpa to say that they had found her walking on the highway. Once, when he stopped by to visit, he found all the cushions from the couch on top of the stove. A catastrophe averted!

Eventually the difficult decision was made that she should be admitted to the Mental Hospital in London. She died there two days before Christmas in 1956. Our celebrations were quiet that year.
 
Aunt Evelyn says her family uses the expression “Done Maggie” to indicate that a job is finished. It has carried on since she was being potty-trained while Aunt Margaret was living/helping at Grandpa’s house. When Aunt Evelyn decided she had sat long enough, she would proclaim: ”Done, Maggie!”

Wayne says, and Bev confirms, that it was scarlet fever not measles that the children had.

Aunt Margaret’s birth registration gives June 13 as her birth date.