Remembering Good Eggs

Blanche, Johnny, neighbor boy and Niecie

Niecie, Johnny and Blanche

Once upon a time the three youngest Urice children – Johnny, Niecey, and sometimes the youngest, Blanche - had a job to do. They were supposed to gather dried corn cobs from the field bordering Garrison and carry them back for fire starters in the wood-burning stove. They were also responsible for bringing in the chickens’ eggs, a chore they occasionally and clandestinely short-circuited by floating a few eggs down Henkle Creek to lighten their load as the pails banged against their legs on the way to the house. They might have gone part way barefoot, but only after the tenth of May if their grandmother Sarah Amanda Alcorn Kerr was watching.

We remembered Niecey (Niecy? Niecie? This was other relatives’ affectionate name for her, I have not seen it spelled!) telling the story and we imagined them today while standing on the little bridge over Henkle Creek. 

We waited years for a day like today, to include Emily who missed the goodbye for her elegant, spirited great aunt; a snowy frozen Christmas would not do, nor a seasonal rainy day, or a hectic family reunion day with two small granddaughters in tow, but a day when the Urice kids might have taken their shoes off.

When Emily called to say she was making a quick trip home for this lovely (Memorial Day) Saturday, we put the last little bits of saved ashes from Aunt Blanche’s celebration of life into three blown egg shells, sealing them up with plasticine and carrying them carefully to the Henkle Creek bridge in Garrison.

Over the side they went - 

and to our delight they swirled 

and bobbed out of sight

for each of the three youngest Urice children: 

John “Johnny” Kerr Urice 4/15/12 -3/30/96 

WWII veteran

beloved mother and grandmother Elsa Janice “Niecey” Urice Zimmer 4/17/1914–10/18/94


 and the lyrical Bessie “Blanche” Urice Froning 
5/26/1914–1/5/2011 

RIP, we love you and remember you.