Uncle Bert's Hat Game — Suzanne Rood

I never met my Great Aunt Ruby. But when she died in 1973, my mother took my sister and I to visit her grieving husband, Uncle Bert. I was eight years old and my sister was ten that winter.

We had just moved to Rochester, New York, for my Dad’s job—a long way from Miami, Florida, where I had spent the early part of my childhood, but much closer to my mother’s extended family members in Alexandria Bay and Watertown. From our new house in Rochester, it was about two and a half hours in the backseat of my mother’s light blue Ford Galaxie 500 to the home of her dear old Uncle Bert.

My mother remembered him from her childhood and teenage years as a fun-loving, curly-headed fellow, who was always teasing and laughing. He and Aunt Ruby lived in a big old house in Watertown, and my mother surprised herself that chilly afternoon by remembering just how to get there.

Uncle Bert’s eyes twinkled as my mother introduced her two little girls. When was the last time he had seen my mother? They couldn’t remember. My sister and I settled into a big chair together in the dusty living room, where the fireplace welcomed us. While my mother and Uncle Bert sat and chatted the way grown-ups do, I looked around at this enchanting room. It was like something you would see in a movie, with dark wood accents and vintage wall-paper. I expected the floors to be creaky.

Before long, Uncle Bert ran a hand over his thin, greying hair and sat forward, grinning at my sister and me. “I wonder if you girls would be interested in trying on some of Ruby’s hats.” He went to the hall closet and brought down several boxes, setting them on the coffee table before us. Opening the first lid, he produced a black felt pill-box hat with a satin bow and a bit of netting. “Try this one on for size,” he laughed, as he set it on my sister’s head. She pulled the netting down so that it shaded her eyes and looked through it at me, smiling. “And here’s one for you.” He pulled out a cream-colored hat, covered in pink lace. It looked like a birthday cake. He set it on my head. “Here, come look in the hall mirror,” he motioned to us, carrying more boxes, and we followed.

We spent the next hour or so trying on all the hats, with Uncle Bert handing them to us one by one and giggling at us. Finally, my mother sighed that it was getting dark outside and we should be heading home. But glancing out the window, she gasped. Snow was falling thickly.

After some grown-up deliberations and a phone call to Daddy, my mother stared out at the blanket of snow in the driveway. “You can’t go anywhere in this weather,” Uncle Bert decided. “You’ll have to stay the night.”

But he wasn’t expecting us, and we didn’t even have anything to sleep in. “Oh, we’ll find something,” assured Uncle Bert. “I can lend the girls some shirts to use for nightgowns.”

My sister and I nestled down together that night enveloped in two of Uncle Bert’s white undershirts. My mother chuckled that mine came down to my ankles. We climbed into a big old, four-poster bed in an upstairs bedroom, and my mother tucked us in under thick, fluffy blankets.

For years, my sister and I talked about playing the “hat game” with Uncle Bert and sleeping in his undershirts. That was the only time we ever saw him. But I will always remember his kindness and warmth, treating us as if we were his own granddaughters, even in the midst of grieving for his wife.

Suzanne Rood is the author of A LIMP OF FAITH (Credo House Publishers, 2019), her story of daily life with CMT, a hereditary neuropathy that challenges her walking, her music, and her faith. Here’s a link to purchase the book on Amazon.