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One late autumn morning I found Eliza sitting at her kitchen table, warmly bundled aganst the morning chill. The house smelled of smoke seeping from a clogged metal chimney flue on the kitchen stove.The kitchen window was wide open to let out smoke.
Eliza asked if my husband, Lyle, would be willing to remove, clean and replace the flue. A few days later, he drove out and cleaned the flues and was concerned when he saw how loosely the pipes fit into the brick chimney on the wall. She insisted they always fit like that.
He commented afterwards that, if asked to do this the following year, he would decline. A professional chimney repair person or carpenter needed to be contacted for a chimney job such as this. He felt it was an unsafe situation as the chimney was gently easing away from the house as was the lean-to kitchen addition. She became aware of the house settling in this alarming fashion several years before. This was when she propped that long 2"x2" board under the outside window frame to keep the window square so the window would swing open.
The following year at chimney cleaning time, Lyle suggested that this would be the time for her to get a professional to do this important repair work. She said she would do something about it. We heard nothing more until her great-niece called me on the phone to say that independent old Eliza had climbed on the stove to clean the chimney herself. She fell off the stove and lay on the kitchen floor for two days before her teen-aged great-grand nephew dropped by and found her.
She was put into her bed with a knee the size of a football and the color of mashed purple grapes. Eliza's religion did not permit a physician nor was she interested in seeing one. Her niece and I worked out a temporary care schedule where one of us came out and fixed breakfast and emptied her commode and the other stopped by later in the day. She stayed in the bed every day until she could get up and walk around with a cane.
Her property was on two very valuable acres in an exclusive area. Realtors contacted her frequently, hoping to list the property for sale, and she turned them away saying, "Now, WHY would I want to leave my home?" She had a tough independent spirit and probably felt like a caged bird when it was time to go to a rest-home.
The last time I drove by her property, the two acres had been swept clean of her home, the little cottage and the small tattered building. There was not a sign of her interesting garden bric-a-brac nor the galvanized washtub planted with a white hydrangea. There will probably be a lavish estate erected at that site.
In my minds eye I see her now, dragging that tarp across those leveled fields. I had interesting times with Eliza, and I think of her every time I see the offspring of her white hydrangea blooming in our garden. I say to it "Hello there, Eliza".
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