There are some family videos featuring my dad as a kid that show all of the living Wylie family members together - and in that video I can see my grandfather and Kathryn. They are easy to recognize. I remember my dad and my grandad talking about Kathryn. My grandfather wrote to her often. She would send my sister and I birthday cards every year. I didn’t meet her until I was a teenager. My grandfather died in 2004, and it wasn’t long after his death that my dad decided he wanted to visit with his last living aunt (James, his uncle died in 1962 and Mary had died in 1994). We began flying to Pennsylvania. We met Kathryn’s children and their families - and I know that my dad loved visiting with his aunt.
I have few memories of her, but there are two that really stand out the most in my mind. When I met my Aunt Kathryn in person, she was basically blind. She could still see some out of her peripheral vision. When we started going to Pennsylvania, I had very long hair. It was down to my waist. I was standing next to her and she reached over and touched it, exclaiming “Oh! It’s a pleat!” I was surprised, I hadn’t thought she could see it at all, and she had recognized my hair was braided that day. Perhaps my favorite memory was when we had gone outside with her. At the nursing home she lived at there was a large swing. I hadn’t seen anything like it - there was a large frame and you could fit about four people onto it - two benches and a connecting platform in the middle. I remember sitting on it with her and my sister and she told us “You know, I rode one one of these when I was a little girl.” |