Traverse City Record-Eagle

Loraine Anderson

Related Photos

  • Anderson

    CSS30B.jpg
July 25, 2011

Loraine Anderson: On the wings of doves

By Loraine Anderson, landerson@record-eagle.com ----

Sunlight spills from the big blue sky into a rural cemetery near my hometown in Michigan's Thumb. The funeral director picks up a basket, says a few words and lifts the lid. Three white doves flutter out and upward.

Surprise ripples through family and friends gathered at a burial service to honor Nellie McKay Andison, my 103-year-old great-aunt who died July 14.

The doves circle high overhead two or three times to get their bearings before starting their 70-mile flight to Port Huron. Tears slip down my face as I watch these ancient messengers of peace, hope and promise.

Life is a series of comings and goings, beginnings and endings, I tell myself.

I think of Aunt Nellie with deep gratitude for her long welcoming and loving presence in my life.

I think of Tom, her son and my cousin, sitting beside me. I remember my favorite picture of us. He is about 13 or 14, spading my grandpa's garden. I am a toddler sitting on the ground with trowel in hand, enthusiastically "helping."

I think of my father, who died 55 years ago at age 35 and rests a few hundred yards away in the Anderson family plot with my mother, grandfather and grandmother.

I think of my great-great-grandfather, who fought in the Civil War and farmed the land across the road from the cemetery, which is also his final resting place.

I think of my 28-year-old nephew who died at Christmastime in Texas.

Time is, time was, all time is now.

Nellie witnessed many firsts during her life -- automobiles, telephones, radios, silent films and "talkies," atomic bomb, space travel, Internet and iPods.

Teddy Roosevelt was president when she was born in 1907, only 42 years after the Civil War. American women got the right to vote when she was 13. She married just as the Great Depression began. She was 101 when the nation elected its first black president.

Nineteen of the nation's 44 presidents served during her lifetime. The world changed and redrew maps a few times during her life.

Nellie lived through her share of good times and hard times but never lost her sweet beauty that came from inside out.

She was a constant settling influence in my life. She cherished her family, Scottish ancestry, Presbyterian church and community. She and Tom became the keepers of my father's family history after my dad and grandmother died within three months of each other. They preserved it until I was old enough to appreciate it and the sense of family that came with it. It has nourished and sustained me over the years and now is being passed on.

"Just knowing her made me a better person," a family friend said.

Me, too.

Loraine Anderson can be reached at 933-1468 or landerson@record-eagle.com.

Text Only