Many Great Aunts

Aunt Dorina

I first learn about great aunts when I am five years old. One day, in the mail, my mother receives a bulging envelope from a Louisville relative. Sitting next to my mother in our kitchen on Artesian St. in Detroit, MI a wild curiosity overwhelms me as she unfurls the contents. With the newspaper clippings spread out on the table, my eyes quickly home in on a photo of a woman with two children. My mother explains that the woman is her aunt and my great aunt, Dorina. Dorina is my grandmother’s sister. While the great-aunt news is a revelation, I already know all about my my two cousins. I am jealous that they, not me and my brother, Mike, are in the photo. As I protest this obvious oversight, my Mom explains that Aunt Dorina is also my cousins’ great aunt which at the time is extreme confusing.

More Great Aunts

Dorina Mattei, born December 31, 1903 in Gromignana, Italy, is seven years younger than my grandmother in Louisville. Like my grandmother, she is a very quiet and sweet woman. In 1959 she would partner with her Grisanti cousins, Albert and Ferd, to open a restaurant. I remember her best, however, from the many delicious dinners she serves to family in her home. Just like my great aunts, Zia Marie Cian Liva (1910-2009) and Zia Marina Mattei (1893-1982), Dorina has an outsized presence in my life, as she had with many of her grand nieces, nephews and cousins. A full profile of these great aunts will come at a later date.

Hellebusch-Belding-Case & Rombach

While my great aunts are almost all Italian-flavored, my husband’s family is teeming with American-made great aunts. Steve’s ancestors came to America between in 1630 and 1842. All are English and German with large families. Of his 11 great aunts, he knew just two, Martha Collins Case (1893-1969), who is the wife of his great uncle Bud, the brother of Steve’s grandma Belding, and Aunt Addie, one of his his father’s aunts. Of all our greats, Aunt Addie stands out as the most eccentric. Childless, losing her only child after a difficult pregnancy, Aunt Addie marries three times to wealthy men who all precede her in death. Crisscrossing the country from Covington, KY to San Diego, CA and back between the1880s until her death in 1956, her colorful life is now family legend. I will share a full profile of Aunt Addie in the future.

Relaxed Relations

Like all extended family, great aunts are very special people or simply historical footnotes. Either way, I like to believe remembering them is important. Thinking of them brings to mind a quote by Irish poet Robert Lynd: “There is something in the relationship between aunts and their nephews and nieces that is quite unlike any other. In the company of their aunts, nephews and nieces know that they are privileged persons. The bonds of duty are somehow relaxed: they have no obligations but to be happy.†CLICK HERE to read more about our families great aunts.

Please share your fondest memories of your great aunts at [email protected]