Mary Jane

(Note:  Years ago I was on staff with the Lehi Free Press, a weekly newspaper for the Lehi area.  Years before I was there, Leo and Edna both took pictures and wrote for the paper as well.  I loved most the assignments to do vignettes of the real people who lived in Lehi.  I miss that.  Today I decided to do a similar piece for my blog.  The advantage here is I get to select the photos and I don't have to limit it to just one or two.  And I can select my own friend to hi-light.)
 

I want you to meet my friend, Mary Jane.
I have to confess, she's a better friend to me than I am to her.

You see, she calls me at least once a week, more frequently toward the end of the month when her coin purse starts collecting dust bunnies.  And though I think of her and wonder if she's ok, I have a tendency to get so involved with so many other things, I don't call her or stop in to visit like I should.

This morning I took her some groceries, and she let me take a few pictures of her beautiful person.

You might mistake Mary Jane for a man.  Her chin is whiskered, and her face is etched with the lines of living.

But get to know her, and you will know that Mary Jane is from the core a sweet woman.

She loves cats.  Her house is overflowing with porcelain, and stuffed, and crafted felines, with photos and blankets and posters and paintings of them.

And one very real, very large, very white cat who shares her bed at night and eats at the piles of cat food Mary Jane leaves in heaps around the house.   Mary Jane loves this beautiful cat.  I wanted to get a picture of them together; Mary Jane said it wasn't going to happen.  The cat agreed.

Mary Jane is one of the residents of our Ward Trailer Court.  She's lived there for longer than she's been part of our ward.  When she first acquired her trailer, she nestled in near her sister Ruth and her brother Wilbur's trailers. She was married once but he died, and she lives on a stipend from his railroad pension as well as a small amount of social security.   Ruth and Wilbur are both gone, too, and now Mary mostly lives her life alone. With visits from good friends like Crystal Grover and Tammy Allman.  And from her niece 'Nor and husband Mike who make sure her garbage is taken to the corner and she's getting along ok.

But mostly she lives each day with just the television and the cat to keep her company.

And the telephone.

So she calls to say "hi" and "watcha doin'?"

And if I stop in, she pulls out her ward directory from years back and shows me the pictures of her brother and her sister that are in it.  She misses them so.

Mary Jane lived her early years across the street from Brent's grandparents over by Sego Lily elementary.  At some point she and her brother were sent to the American Fork Training School where she grew into adulthood.

Sometimes I wonder if she knew my father's dear Aunt Millie while she was there.  They would have been there at the same time.

Thank you, sweet friend, for letting me be part of your life.  And for letting me take your pictures today.  You teach me so much.