Always of a cheery disposition with a pretty smile, my great Aunt Sally, my grandma's younger sister, was a lady whose English accent attracted me to her.

Her husband, Uncle Dick Rose, had passed away a few years before. His was the first funeral I ever attended, quite remarkable actually because of his open casket, ordinarily not a Jewish funerary custom.
 
Her house was a wonderous place, an all brick bungelow on the south side of St. Louis, in which as young children we spent a fair deal of time. It was a virtual shrine to her late son, Clifford, who had been killed at the Battle of the Bulge.

I remember his picture atop Aunt Sally's fireplace mantle, a handsome Errol Flynn type, dashing with a pencil thin moustache and outfitted in his cleanly pressed and starched U.S Army uniform.

As a child, I didn't then, but I do now understand Aunt Sally's veneration of her Clifford, and she took a patriotic pride in his utimate sacrifice and proudly displayed a sign on her front door that she was a mom whose son had given his all for our country.

One other thing that endeared me to Aunt Sally's house was that she had a small framed photo of my mom and dad on one of her end tables. I couldn't fathom why but it did make me feel good.