ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY:

On this day in history the Congress passed the Bill of Rights, The three crewmen of Skylab II landed in the Pacific Ocean after being on the U.S. space laboratory for 59 days, and My Aunt Frances was born.  Big deal you might say to yourself..."So today is your Aunt's birthday.  We all have birthdays."  Yep,  we all have birthdays, but will you have a 100 of them?  That's right,  today My Aunt Frances is 100 years old.  Happy birthday Aunt Frances.

I'm sure you are familiar with the old saying  "He can't see the forest for the trees."   Well this morning as I was thinking about someone like my Aunt Frances having 100 birthdays, this old saying came to mind. But as I thought, I said to myself,  "Be careful Wes, living to be a hundred years old is quite a feat,  but the big thing,  the thing that really matters is what you did in those hundred years."  So I decided to change the saying to "You can't see the trees for the forest."  You see,  the forest is the one hundred years but My Aunt Frances built that forest one tree at a time.  To know My Aunt Frances,  you have to be able to see the years in small segments.

1912....Taft was President.  It would be 2 years before WWI would start.  Seventeen years before the great depression, and it was the first year of the Girl Scouts. Oh how I wish I had been smart enough to quiz Aunt Frances years ago about her young life.  The stories I could have heard and the things I could have learned.  Aunt Frances is the oldest of eight Hogue children and the last one living. Today she is bed ridden,  her body is broken and almost worn out.  Her mind isn't sharp like it was a few years ago but her spirit is still something to behold.  If you look up "sweet spirit" in the Dictionary,  it wouldn't surprise me to see a picture of My Aunt Frances.

As I wish for unheard stories to be told to me by My Aunt Frances,  the one thing I do have and cherish are the memories I have of her.  I still remember as a young boy visiting at her house,  playing with little cars in the room next to the kitchen as she was cooking dinner for her family.  The thing that is foremost in my memory isn't the food she was preparing or the decor of the house.  It isn't of the toy cars and trucks I played with or the clothes she wore.  The memory is of her voice singing praises to her Savior.  She wasn't just humming a tune or singing a chorus.  She knew all the words to the hymns and would sing all the words.  There was no air conditioning and the windows were open and I know the neighbors heard her sweet voice.  It hasn't been but a short time ago that I once again heard her singing and it still brought a smile to my face and a warmth to my heart.

I love going to yard sales and flea markets.  I like taking old throw away items and decorating my birdhouses with these things.  I can trace my love for scrounging for old things directly back to My Aunt Frances.  We lived in Atlanta when I was young and I can still remember her coming out and picking me up and we would go down on Decatur Street to the pawn shops looking for bargains.  It makes me laugh thinking about her shopping in these stores.  She loved her antiques.

But if you're going to talk about the loves of My Aunt Frances,  you have to start with family.  When the Bible talks about being equally yoked, I'm sure it's talking about Aunt Frances and Uncle Ralph.  When you came to the first curve on Cooper Lake Road,  every house you could see, the people who lived in them were related to Aunt Frances or Uncle Ralph. My Grandfather died when all  the kids were fairly young and from what I can discern,  the family stayed very close in large part because of Aunt Frances and Uncle Ralph.  I can still remember during the last years of my Mom's life,  if there was a problem,  she would say  "Call Aunt Frances." If the Hogue family had a Matriarch, without a doubt it was My Aunt Frances. And you could easily see the importance that was placed on family, in the lives of the children of Aunt Frances.  Even when we lived out in Atlanta it wasn't unusual for Jimmy or Stuart or Nick to show up for a visit.  And Marlene and Dianne seemed as close as sisters sometimes.  Family mattered to Aunt Frances and she taught her children that family matters.

I could go on and on about stories about My Aunt Frances.  Stories about auctions and staying the weekend at her house.  Stories about sleeping in the attic of the garage, riding across the fields in a horse drawn wagon and early morning squirrel hunting trips.  Funny stories about biting my finger nails and getting Polio from it. 

I'm sure during these 100 years there were some hard times and disappointments.  I'm sure there were times when many of us would say "why keep on going."  But not My Aunt Frances.  I'm sure that on this morning she awoke with a smile on her face and a song in her heart. And so today I say to her......

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUNT FRANCES,  HOPE YOU HAVE A BLESSED DAY AND I AM SO GLAD I CAN CALL YOU:
                                                   MY AUNT FRANCES