You talked about Geraldine making dresses....but don't forget about the Christmas she made me the most beautiful lil blue ballerina tutu in the world. I remember opening the box from Geraldine that Christmas, and pulling it out, and thinking that it really couldn't be for me, because it was so beautiful...that someone must have given it to me by mistake!! I remember dancing and twirling in front of the dresser mirror for hours at a time to the tune of a little music box I had. I think I lived in that tutu until I couldn't get it on anymore. Geraldine made me feel just like a little princess that Christmas. It was probably the most beautiful thing I ever owned... then, and even now.

Cindy.....My Geraldine Story

Geraldine decided to make my Cabbage Patch doll a blanket one summer when we were visiting her. I sat at the kitchen table and watched as she finished the little green and white blanket, hoping to learn how she made it so I could make one, too. I remember thinking that these were the moments people had on TV, where the kid watches as the adult lovingly shows them how to do something new. I knew this would be a special memory and I hoped that this would be a moment between us that she'd remember, too. I continued to watch as she tied the ends of the yarn together, and then she looked up at me and in a quiet voice, said, "Cindy, are you going to sit there and watch me?"

Bobby's Story

This may not really be a story, but it is funny. I always remember sitting at Geraldine's kitchen table at night when we were visiting, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. I can always remember the back door being open and the light on in the driveway and hearing the crickets in the back yard, and cars going up and down Deep Creek Blvd. hitting a man hole cover in the road. Kinda strange, but sometimes I lay in my bed here and think about that and I will hear a car or something and it will kinda take me back to her house. Also, I remember the salt and pepper shakers she kept over her stove. I think I knocked them off or something one time. Anyway, after she died Fara gave them to me.

Linda's Memories

I remember when she lived on Bellevue Street and we used to walk home from Bellevue School. She used to grow lollipops by putting the sticks(already eaten lollipops) in the ground one day and the next day there would be a lollipop there. It seemed like she also grew money a couple of times, too! She also helped me decide on Douglas's name when we were down there(Portsmouth) about a month before he was born. I was sitting at her kitchen table telling her the names I had thought about and she said that"Douglas was a really nice name." I also remember when we lived on Highland Ct. and Geraldine, Douglas and I think Lisa and her clan showed up there out of the blue because they were calling for a hurricane or something down there; so they hopped in their car and came here and stayed for a night with us.( My note: Portsmouth had orders to evacuate and they thought they'd travel far enough away to get a motel, but everything was filled up 'til they got all the way to Danville)

Susan's Memory

I remember being at Geraldine's one summer,it must have been the time Keister and I went. I was a little girl and I was going to take a shower. Well, she came into the bathroom to check on me and there I was....taking my shower...sitting down, trying not to drown in the spray of water that was hitting me in the face. If I remember correctly, she TRIED not to laugh at me.What did I know? We didn't have a shower at home. I liked bath/shower time at Geraldine's because I remember that she had that Shower to Shower powder to use afterwards.

More Memories from Tami

I remember back when I was little and we still lived on Henry St, and Geraldine lived "up the hill" on Bellevue. Geraldine had a cute little black dog by the name of Blackie, who probably spent more time at our house running around playing with us Whitt kids, than she did at home. Mom used to sometimes send Geraldine notes attached to Blackie's collar. This was way before Daddy let us get a telephone. Mom used to write a note, somehow hook it to the little dog's collar, stomp her foot hard and say in a very loud voice, "Go home, Blackie." And Blackie would do just that, she would go home! Just as fast as her little feet would carry her! From our back porch we would watch Blackie run across our yard, climb up the hill....disappear for a moment and then reappear at the top of the steps on Geraldine's back porch begging to be let in the door. After a while, we would see Geraldine's screen door open, see her head poke out, watch her lean over, pet Blackie and get the note off her collar. I think most of the time the note was probably an invitation to come down, sit, and chat for a while over a cup of coffee in the evenings....but I don't really know for sure. I do remember Geraldine coming "down the hill" a lot to sit and drink coffee at the kitchen table with Mom in the evenings, while we played outside with our cousin Bo, but Mom didn't really go up to her house very often. When we did get invited, it seemed like a special occasion like a cook-out or birthday party, or maybe a sleepover. It wasn't Geraldine's fault, I know she loved us. And we loved her!

From Mom: Looking for something in my "box" I found a picture of Tami...probably about 18 months old, halfway up "the hill" and Geraldine halfway down with her hands outstretched to help her the rest of the way. At that age, Tami really loved Geraldine better than she did me!!!

Keister's Danville Memories

I have quite a few memories of Geraldine(and Douglas) and reading the recent additions has really brought them to the surface. The days on Henry and Bellevue Street were quite memorable. (I just left life saving crew duty and went on a call in front of the old house on Henry Street). I remember the times that Douglas had to come down the hill to doctor on one of the Whitt kids and it was usually me. I still have the bump on the back of my head after the spring horse threw me off the porch onto the rocks. I still have the scar between my eyes where Bo hit me with the shovel while we were digging for who knows what out in the back yard. I remember camping out in Geraldine's backyard and getting to sleep in a real tent. I liked to sneak into Fara's "apartment" in the basement at 325 Bellevue Street and listen to her records(Elvis and Glen Campbell) and look at all the neat things she had in her room. I remember that Geraldine had the first real living room I had ever seen in a house. I guess the earliest memory is getting to go to Gerry's house after Tami had gone to school to help her count the icecream truck money. Geraldine would let me count it, roll it and help fix the deposit and then we would sometimes carry it back and put it in the wall safe they had in the bedroom. It is funny how those small details are sometimes the best memories. The Porsmouth days to follow...... Note from Mom: Gerry and Douglas used to tell me that you'd grow up to be a banker cause you were so good with the money!!!

Geraldine's Bathroom.......Tami

This may sound a little crazy, but when I was little I thought that Geraldine had the best smelling bathroom in the whole wide world! Whenever we got invited to go to Geraldine's house for something, I looked forward to making an excuse of having to use the bathroom, just so I could go into her bathroom. Sometimes I did not even have to use it, I would just stand in there enjoying the nice smell and being amazed at how nice and clean everything was, and gazing at my reflection in her nice clean streak-free bathroom mirror. You have to understan that we only had one small bathroom at our house, and several more kids than Geraldine did.....so ours was not always as clean and fresh smelling as Geraldine's was. I always remember her telling me, "Now, don't you mess up my nice clean bathroom!" It was as if everytime I went in there she might have just finished cleaning it. Sometimes I used to wonder if my cousins ever took a bath, and if they used it because it was just too clean for any kids to have been using it! I used to think of her whiling away the time in her bathroom, humming to herself, just scrubbing and cleaning and spraying some good smelling stuff, just in case someone should show up at her door and want to use the bathroom! I do mean her bathroom was always so clean and fresh smelling it was as if she had just walked out with a toilet brush in one hand and a bottle of air freshener in the other. Even after they moved to Portsmouth, I remember the first trip I made to see her, and going into her bathroom in the new house and it smelling just the same way it used to on Bellevue Street. Even the upstairs bathroom that company would use when they spent the night was always just as clean and fresh smelling. What was her secret? Did she have a favorite scent she used for years and years? And was it potpourri, or was it a spray? Or was it the cleaner she used? Its nothing in the world like walking into a nice clean bathroom and sniffing the air to a pleasant scent....hhmmm, it takes me back to Geraldines.