Jessie Wright Montgomery
1910 - 1992
| In Memoriam Jessie W. Montgomery |
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| November 11, 1992 | ||
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| Reception to follow at the house of her brother "Baby" Wright |
My Aunt Jessie, the great-aunt I knew. Sticky buns. Church services. Her businesslike, impatient bigotry. Served as the nurse in the public school system for forty years. Married for the first time at age fifty-three. Widowed ten years later. Inherited one of the finest houses in town.
Told stories for grownups while I played with plastic horses in the corner. The Johnson kid fell into the bin while they were loading feed and suffocated under the grain. Mouth, nose, eyes, ears filled with corn. Mary Ryan the honors student tried to walk the railing of the old railroad bridge on a dare and slipped and fell one hundred feet to the tracks below. Broke her neck. Melissa Barton, sweet girl, just the sweetest little thing, fell off the jungle gym at school, hit her head, and died before her mother could get to the nurse's office.
Death was everywhere around Aunt Jessie.
Later, at my request, we began a correspondence about the past, with me asking questions and she answering them in short letters dashed off on her 1936 Remington typewriter. I was introduced to a different Aunt Jessie, one with a quick, unromantic eye. These letters make up a large portion of this site.