14 - Linwood and Doris

Doris and Linwood, Aberdeen 1957

     My uncle Linwood was my father's older brother.  He was the eldest of six children, and he had left home by the time Daddy started school.  

     He was middle-aged when he married Doris, and most everyone in the family found both of them eccentric and a little comical.   We called him Bubba.  That's what Daddy had called him as a child, and the name stuck.   He always made me think of the actor Paul Douglas, but that is neither here nor there, as I don't suppose there is anyone left who remembers Paul Douglas.

     Doris was generally considered to be a hypochondriac, and growing up I remember Mother and Big Polly gossiping about seeing Doris' car yet again parked in front of Doctor Bowen's office, speculating on what could be wrong with her this time.   She had a raspy, bass voice, the result of years of chain smoking; and as far back as I can remember she was taking a variety of pills for what she called her allergies.   

     As for Bubba, he was  obsessed with money,  with not spending it.   He would fixate on the worst scenario of finding himself without enough money, and each year he became more and more of a miser.

  

Bubba and Daddy 1946

    As simple as our family creature comforts seem in retrospect, we lived sumptuously compared to Bubba and Doris.  Although they had considerably more money (due to the fact that they were childless and spent little on themselves), there was never any question of going on holiday, almost never a meal out, and only rarely an extravagance such as an outing to what Linwood still called the "moving pictures."

     Whenever family members encouraged them to do something which would entail an extra expenditure, Linwood would launch into a lecture on the importance of his money earning interests at every moment.  He could be quite unintentionally comical when explaining how he waited until the last possible moment before settling his electricity bill.

     "It makes a lot more sense  earning two percent in the Building and Loan," he would say, "than giving it to the Carolina Power and Light."

     He was permanently preoccupied with the possibility of one day finding himself without the financial means to take care of himself and Doris.  I don't know if there was any real explanation for this money phobia, other than he had lived through the Depression and had seen his mother lose her savings when the  bank owned by her cousins failed in 1934. This dramatic local tragedy did not, however, seem to unduly affect anyone else in the family.

     So  Bubba continued throughout his working life to spend the absolute minimum.  By the time he retired, and Daddy had bought out his share of the sand company, he had amassed what seemed to be a real little fortune.  Even Stanley Hartly (see blog on Stanley) once said he thought Linwood must be sitting on quite an impressive nest egg.

     Fate decided on a bizarre twist.  Bubba, who had known no illness during most of his working life, suffered a massive stroke in the early years of his retirement.  He was hospitalized at Moore Memorial in a coma for many weeks before being transferred to another hospital and nursing home. 

     Doris, who had no experience in money management or in running anything, pretty much fell apart.  She left bills unpaid and overpaid others.

     Bubba died  five long years later, still hospitalized and for the most of that time still in a coma.  He had been presumably unaware of the horrendously expensive long-term medical and nursing care, or that his most dreaded fear had in fact indeed been realized.  

     It was not until the bank began foreclosure procedures on their home that family realized almost every penny of his money was gone.   My father and Frances tried to help Doris find a last-minute solution, but it was too late.  She paid one final visit to Dr. Bowen, and then chose what she saw as the easy way out, with the aid of an overdose of barbiturates and a plastic bag. 

Your input is welcomed:  frank.pleasants@libertysurf.fr

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

Doctor Bowen and Big Polly were feautured in "Doctor Bowen and Janette" from  Musings and Meanderings No.1; Doctor Bowen is also mentioned in "A Date With Dephie" from Musings and Meanderings No. 17.  Linwood and Stanley Hartly and Frances were featured in "The Guardian Angel", Musings and Meanderings No. 2.   Grandmother Pleasants and Frances in Hotel Musings No. 2 "Grandmother Pleasants and Mrs. Kennedy" and Hotel Musings No. 4 "A Two-dollar Hamburger Under A Silvery Dome"    (to access, click on highlighted titles).