To All My Preuit-Dinsmore Cousins:
In 1958 I lived in Albuquerque 3 blocks from Central on a shady street in a very comfortable neighborhood. I was employed by a bank where I worked on those old gigantic posting machines with accounts from the T’s to the Z’s. One of those accounts was a flower shop and the owner of the shop would send me a bouquet 💐 every Friday. Aunt Rene and Uncle Cub, your grandparents, would stop by to visit and bring me a basket of firewood from Las Cruces. If they happened by when the flowers were fresh I would give them the bouquet. Aunt Rene loved the flowers and I was happy to get the firewood.
Remembering ancient days and how I looked forward to those visits with my aunt and uncle were more fun throwbacks for me. I always enjoyed visits from them. Uncle Cub was sweet and handsome and I found Aunt Rene interesting and sometimes witty. I felt a special bond with her as she loved to tell me how she saved my life when I was a baby. She chuckled as she told me about my sleeping arrangements then…My mother, Dolly, was very ill so Grandad Preuit contacted his sons and daughters to garner help for her and her hopeful children. Some siblings were ‘farmed out' to other aunts and uncles and Aunt Rene took me home with her. In a letter to me she writes, ‘We talked about the time when you were a baby-I did take you home with me, I was living in Roswell. That would have been in May or June when you were about six months. Guess where you slept? I didn’t have – a small bed- so you slept in a dresser drawer.’
Clear memories and accompanying warm feelings flash through my mind: visiting her different homes with exotic Native American pots, baskets, rugs and interesting magazines and books; then traveling throughout New Mexico and someone saying this is a bridge/road that Uncle Cub built.
In later years when I visited, Aunt Rene proudly showed me squaw dresses she wore in the early ’50’s when she served as president of the New Mexico Federation of Republican Women and in Washington DC as a delegate to the Republican Convention. Many people asked her about them and where one could be purchased as they never had seen any attire like that!
My young sons and I stopped by on our way to Clovis one year and I was much impressed when she, in her 90’s then, took me to the garage where she was making her second doll house.
I remember the last family reunion we had at Lois and Harry’s house. Aunt Rene, ‘the jockey’ as Dan called her because of the cap she wore, was there and we had such a good visit. That one visit and all the others were very special to me, as the memories still are.
Your Cousin,
Carolyn
*Written in November 2018*
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