We
played Skip Bo with her in the nursing home where she'd been
living for about 3 months. At 104, she
was still sharp at cards. She kept looking
at Mary Ann's hand and whispering to her
if Mary Ann didn't see a good play.
This is my great aunt, Bonnie Fenley.
We
played Skip Bo with her
in the nursing home where she'd been
living for about 3 months. At 104, she
was still sharp at cards. She kept looking
at Mary Ann's hand and whispering to her
if Mary Ann didn't see a good play.
When I asked her to smile for the camera,
she stuck her tongue out at me.
I didn't meet Aunt Bonnie until 1993. My daughter sent out a mass mailing to "all the Fenleys in Oklahoma and Texas with old fashioned names" in an attempt to find information about my long vanished father, and Bonnie wrote back, "You wrote to the only one in Oklahoma who could ever give you information about the Fenleys in this part of the country." |
 |
| She had come to
Oklahoma out
of Texas on a covered wagon when her family got some land during one of the land rushes. They settled in Tipton and raised cotton. She became a teacher and in 1921 met my grandfather and his brothers "who came down from Chickasha to build the high school." She married the youngest brother, Frank. The oldest brother was my grandfather, John Fenley, who later "died with a hammer in his hand." A few years ago, she moved to Colorado to
live with Bonnie passed away peacefully on June 15,
2005, less than three |
|