This morning I lay here thinking of a kaleidoscope of things – maybe a variation of the old life passing before your eyes theme. Suddenly my mind thought of the  – excuse me, but just using the terminology heard for years – dirty old woman who lived up in Howe, but I couldn’t remember her name. I thought it has a double “s” in it, but didn’t think it was Flossie because Flossie was one of the Bobbsey Twins. (You know, Freddie’s sister, but I had better stop myself before I go off on a tangent.)

On a hunch I typed  “dirty old lady Howe, Indiana” into the Google search slot and voila – THIS SITE showed up.  This is a little different than the way I heard the story . . . from a woman who was born in 1881 in Howe (then Lima) and from her daughters born in 1908 and 1926. Now, the one born in 1881 was my grandmother, a Presbyterian by birth and then a Methodist by nearness of church in the old days. She was the adult Sunday School teacher for years and Superintendent of the Sunday School and president of the WSCS forever – Women’s Society for Christian Service. When the daughter who was born in 1908, my aunt, died in 1998, one person commented that if she didn’t get into Heaven, no one would and everyone agreed. The 1926 daughter was my mother and not so religious, although she had a decency and ethical streak a mile wide.

Their take on the situation was that Crissy did just fine until the “good Christian ladies decided to scrub her up and then she died.”  I’m going to leave it at that, other than to say sometimes the phrase, “You had to have been there” may indicate a lot of  history is up for grabs.