It's Like a Piece of Your Childhood Died

Aunt Phyllis Guilmette: RIP

No, that's (the surname) not a misprint, a minor kerfuffle between the families over that. One of my cousins once used their spelling to mail me something, and I was seriously ticked off. As best as I can tell (my Dad was the baby of the family and Uncle Ray (17 months older) was the next youngest of the 6 siblings (two girls)), everybody except Uncle Ray (and similarly Uncle Edgar) spelled our surname the same way. Why was Uncle Ray different? Consider this is a political blog, and take a wild guess. Some incompetent bureaucrat anglicized the family name on his birth certificate (to explain: in English, my surname is pronounced "gill met", i.e., the first/last e are silent). I can't speak for why my paternal grandparents never noticed the misspelling on the birth certificate at the time and had it corrected, and I think Uncle Ray used to spell it our way--until he got drafted by the Army during the Korean War. At that point, it became very difficult to do something like a legal name change.

There is a second oddity to Uncle Ray's name which seems to reflect our Franco-American (French Canadian) heritage. His godfather's given name was Emile. Now one needs to understand that the (Catholic) Church is an essential part of the culture, and infant baptism in particular:

Often times, especially in small rural towns, two or more children born roughly at the same time but to different parts of the extended family will have the same names. It was, up until the late 1800s, usual when baptizing a child to give it the sex appropriate name of the godparent. 

Now consider the custom that the name the child is to be called may not be the first name listed, but could be the second/third/other:

Up until the mid-1900s French-Canadian first names given at the time of baptism had a certain structure. Usually, not always, the child was given three names. The first name, often Marie or Joseph indicated the sex of the baby. The second name was often the name of the sex appropriate God-parent. The third was the name the child was called.

[As an aside, my own Mom ran into a similar positioning issue, which she discovered in high school and had it fixed legally. Her mother's given name had preceded her given name; she had never gone by her mother's name.]

Uncle Ray proudly stood by his birth certificate (to parody Billy Joel: "his kids may call him 'Emile' but he's still Uncle Ray to me.") And a tongue-in-check musical interlude:



I think I point out in Dad's memorial blog why Uncle Ray put a peach on my Dad's casket (Dad is buried in a family plot in New England, although he died in Texas; my uncle couldn't make it for the funeral mass, but he did to the graveside service.) I still can't believe I had never heard the peach incident before. My Dad was about 6 at the time. They were walking past a farm and Dad was eyeing peaches on nearby tree branches, ripe for the picking. He persuaded a reluctant Ray to join him and climb the trees and pluck some fruit. But the farmer caught them in the act and ordered them back to his barn, put huge bowls of peaches in front of them. "You boys want peaches: you eat peaches." And they did until they couldn't eat another one. "From now on, if you boys want peaches, you come see me. Don't climb trees breaking branches or falling down and hurting yourselves."

While we're on the topic of government screw-ups, Dad, as a career USAF veteran, got an engraved gravestone, which was great--until you realize they misspelled Mom's maiden name (they added an s to the end). I'm like "Mom, you need to have them fix this." She refused to make an issue of it, was simply grateful they provided one.

Mom attended JMA (a Catholic girls school in Fall River). Phyllis Menard attended a different grammar school but went to JMA for high school. There was an instant connection. They loved to go dancing on weekends; according to Mom, Phyllis was the life of the party, and many young men were attracted by her good looks and sparkling personality.

Mom met Dad, they fell in love and got married. Phyllis was Mom's maid of honor, and Uncle Ray was Dad's best man. Uncle Ray was smitten with Phyllis, they dated and got married. I was born in Texas, but Dad was soon reassigned to Cape Cod, relatively near most relatives, one of his longer USAF assignments (I had started elementary school). There were sad moments; my maternal grandmother (and godmother) dying of complications from colon cancer before I turned 3. But there were plenty of visits to Connecticut where Uncle Ray and Aunt Phyllis had moved and settled for work reasons (maybe a couple of hours drive away). I met and liked my other cousins, too (Dad's brother Fernand and sister Bea had families), but there has always been a strong bond between the families based on our parents' connections. We also stayed at my maternal grandfather's house for parts of my fifth and sixth grade (my Dad had military assignments in France and South Carolina, and it took a while to get base or local housing) Like our family, their family grew: David, Brian, Conrad, Celeste, and Eddie. I remember playing with my older male cousins, especially David (who tragically passed far too young). I have always thought, and will always think, of Aunt Phyllis as a good, loving, beautiful woman with an ebullient personality, her laughter and a big smile; she was fun to be around.

Unfortunately because we were constantly moving, those visits became infrequent. But I particularly remember the Christmas break from college when I turned 18. My Dad and family had moved from Texas to a base in Germany, my first Christmas away from family. My maternal grandfather had invited me to spend the holidays with him. But the whole Guilmette family showed up for a brief visit just to see me, and Aunt Phyllis greeted me a big, enthusiastic hug. (On another occasion it might be a heartfelt kiss on the cheek.)  It made me feel special; it brightened my day. And in a nutshell, that's how it felt to be around Aunt Phyllis.

I became caught up in my own career after college and visits to the Northeast were rare. I recall we went back to celebrate my maternal uncle's golden anniversary of his ordination, and in 1995 I joined my folks on a trip back East, I think the month after I came back from a long stay in Brazil.

I don't think Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Ray ever came down to Texas. I think in part they both had some health issues since middle-age. In particular, Uncle Ray had battled Hodgkin's for years; for a while, it seemed like he might be the first Guillemette brother to pass, but he turned out to survive Dad.

A week ago Thursday or Friday Aunt Phyllis suffered a massive stroke; one of my cousins found her collapsed, probably in the middle of preparing dinner, when they visited the house. By the time she got to the hospital, doctors said the damage was beyond hope of recovery; she was unconscious. The family made the difficult decision to place her into a hospice. On Thursday, surrounded by her family, she passed.

For Mom, the loss of her best friend and sister-in-law is inconsolable. (The only bright spot in this story is that Mom had just gone to New England over the past month to visit family and especially Aunt Phyllis. I have several pictures of the two best friends taken by my cousins.)

For me, it's like losing a part of my childhood. There are no other Guillemette aunts and uncles. Aunt Phyllis was one of a kind, and even if you never knew her, I would appreciate honoring her with your thoughts and prayers.