A picture comes to mind whenever I think of my great-aunt Nellie, no matter how old she or I become.
It is the first Thanksgiving of my memory. She is in her 40s, and I am maybe 2 or 3 years old. We are in a kitchen. She is holding me in her arms, probably to keep me from being underfoot as uncle Kenneth carves the turkey.
Strands of her thick, black hair -- braided, twisted and turned in a fashion I find fascinating -- are well within my reach. I touch them and try to follow the plaits with my finger. She laughs and hugs me. I feel loved and cherished.
Aunt Nellie celebrated her 100th birthday this month in a three-day weekend of visits, cards and phone calls. The official date was Monday, Nov. 5, but my visit came on Saturday, the day of the Michigan State-Michigan football game. She was wearing her U-M sweatshirt as she always does on game days.
She showed me her cards and asked me to read aloud the letter my brother included in his newly arrived card.
"It sounds just like a letter your grandfather could have written," she says when I finish.
She opens my gift. I am as excited as a child. It is a small, enamel box that contains an Indianhead penny and Liberty nickel minted in 1907, the year she was born.
Michigan's auto industry was in its infancy then. Cars, horses, buggies and bicycles had to share the roads, many of them dirt. The Civil War had been over just 42 years.
Newspapers carried reports of smallpox, typhoid and diphtheria outbreaks. National headlines screamed about lynchings elsewhere. Prohibition and women's suffrage were more than a decade away.
She is surprised. I tell her about a friend who suggested the 1907 coins. I mention the search of antique shops and growing anxiety as her birthday approached.
I tell her about the man at the Gold and Silver Center in downtown Traverse City who dug around in a box in his office and all but gave me the coins when he heard why I wanted them. I don't even know his name -- Jim Sanborn, who co-owns the store with Ken Olsen -- until I go back after her birthday to thank him.
The story makes the penny, the nickel and her birthday even more special because it comes from the heart of a perfect stranger.
She takes out her magnifying glass for a closer look. As I watch, that image of me in her arms appears like a recurring dream. I recognize that it is a gift -- and saving grace -- to have this memory woven into the braid of my life. And I am grateful.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Record-Eagle columnist Loraine Anderson can be reached at landerson@record-eagle.com or 933-1468.
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