BRAZIL BUZZ: A day for celebration

A day for celebration

By Mary Lou Sartor

Today is my birthday. Eighty years ago on this date, I was born in Brazil. Dad claimed the stork dropped me off at their house and more, on a rock. Mom claimed Dr. Timothy Weaver delivered me.

Some people said I was a cute baby. I guess that would be close relatives. Others in my early life said I had a round head, a big head and even, shame on them, an empty head.

Funny what folks say about babies. What about the fingers? My aunt thought my long fingers would someday make a piano talk, like the Siner sisters. That never happened.

You look like your mom, you look like your dad, even someone not familiar just can’t put their stubby finger on the likeness. I looked like me!

She has her dad’s nose and I don’t know where she gets those long toes and big feet. She might someday stamp out a fire. They said I walked on hot coals that dropped from a freshly filled ash pan when I was a barefoot toddler.

I have been in hot water many times since, hot flashes and sunburned, although, I seldom have hot feet anymore.

Several inquisitive friends ask my mom why she named me Mary Lou. Some thought after my Aunt Mary and others thought she named me after hearing an old song about a girl named Mary Lou. Mom kept me guessing although she played and sang the song often.

I wondered about the name for years until one day when mother’s youngest sister, Bonnie told me she had the head of a doll she received from their eldest sister, Thelma, in 1927 for her birthday. Thelma purchased her baby with her first paycheck from a dry goods store in Brazil where she worked.

She said the day she received the treasured gift she named her Mary Lou.

My girls and I didn’t want that beautiful girl baby doll to lie around without a body and performed a little minor surgery and attached a good as a new body to Mary Lou’s pretty neck. Surgery was successful. The head had a body and Starla’s doll body had a head.

Bonnie took her baby home and wrapped her in the original quilts that her mother made her Mary Lou back in the day.

One day toward the end of my aunt’s life she gave me Mary Lou. Attached to her quilt was a note.

The thoughtfulness of her action and the content of the note made it clear to me why mom named me after her baby.

Thelma took a photo of little Bonnie with her gift, in front of their house in Hoosierville and wrote on the back. Since I admired all of the Mary’s that might have given mother the desire to name me after them and credit to the music, I give them all some of the credit. I like my name!

Here I am at eighty. The body is a little broken down and this senior slowed down a bit. And, my long fingers --they are chubby now, because of that pain maker Arthritis. Most of the elderly know about that rascal.

I am still singing a sweet song and looking forward to each new day! Now the aforementioned attitude in regard to my advanced age is not enough to give me the big head! I already came into this world with a big head. It is a good thing the old noggin covered with hair now.

Now its time to call it a day -- a very long day.

I can be reached by phone at 317-286-7352 or drop me a line to 649 South Grant Street, Brazil, In., 46112.