DOROTHY JAMES

by Edward Alan Conroy Sr.

Aunt Dorothy, long dead, was a heavy drinking party-girl who was married and divorced so many times that no one is sure just how many men she was married to and how many were just husbands in name only.

I always liked Aunt Dorothy and got along well with her. In young adulthood I even envied her bohemian lifestyle and her determination to make the world conform to her standards instead of her to it's. But even I worried about her drinking and sometimes dangerous life-style.

After my Father and Mother divorced, Dad became gravely ill for several months and Aunt Dorothy took him in and nursed him back to health--just because she liked him. He lived in her trailer in the front yard of her house--trailers and the people that owned them were considered very low-class in those days. Dad never forgot this favor and was always a "Dorothy" booster forever more.

Aunt Dorothy committed suicide.