Dorothy

My dear grandmother, Dorothy Wells Ennis (?) (?) Huggins, died four years ago this month. The ?'s are because she was married at least two more times, but I don't remember their names. They don't include the numerous relationships she welcomed into her life and ours.

She was beautiful but never conformed to the demands of culture that told her how to convey that beauty. At sixteen she aspired to the footlights of the burlesque stage where she appeared to audition. My grandfather, who at the time was only one of a myriad of suitors literally pulled her off the stage kicking and screaming, "You can't do this, we're not married. We're not even engaged!" To which he replied, "We are now."

If passion can be inherited, I surely gained the passion of my life from that great woman.

She loved everyone and everything that reminded her of each person. She cried over a simple card and a visit. She wouldn't say s**t if she had a mouthful of it, but she would stand at the pier at the harbor at Long Beach and wait for sailors to disembark for liberty. She took in the really rough ones and found their hearts. They came and left as the winds of March.

I remember sitting on the floor with the rest of my girl cousins in the living room of her tiny house in La Puente, California. We listened with eager ears and upturned faces as her stories of love and romance and we each knew the ways in which we fit into those stories--both as direct products and vehicles to carry on her passion. We marveled and anticipated as we neared our favorite part of the storytelling, when she would bring out her jewelrybox, loaded with rubies, diamonds, gold, silver, and sapphires--some were the real thing, some were not--we didn't know the difference, and we didn't care. We lifted each treasure with reverence and glee, tried the pieces on and preened, giggling and chattering the entire time. And over the din of our childish, girlish prattle, and in my memorie's ear, I can still hear her admonishing voice singing out, "Keep the ring, it's what you get for the trouble"