On the occasion of her 112th birthday, January 14, 2021 …

Today is Aunt Fay’s birthday.  She was born in 1909, the third of five children (3 girls, 2 boys) and she died in 1986.  She was married to Ernest (Slim) Christian.   Below is a little family history.  Personally, it took me some time to appreciate all that Aunt Faye did for us and to realize how much she loved us and the impact it must have had on their lives.  She was wonderful to me and my family over the years and Teri and Brad always loved to be around her.  We always enjoyed her visits over the years and was wonderful to be around.
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In January 1957, Dan (11), Tim (3) and I (13) went to live with Aunt Fay (48) and Uncle Slim (51).  Our older brother, Pat (17) stayed in Comanche and joined the Navy when he graduated in May.  This was a new adventure for them as they had never had children of their own.  I’ve always wondered how the conversation between them went when they talked about us coming to live with them in their very small house.

Dan and I were a special challenge as we had basically been running the streets of Comanche and doing whatever we wanted for three years after our mother, Lorene, died at the age of 35.  She had been extremely active in our lives and was a very loving and fabulous mother.  Our Dad (Carl) was a good, gentle, and very smart man, but battled the challenges in his life with alcohol.  Tim was the very best young boy imaginable.  We all loved him very much but we didn’t provide the best oversite.  Fortunately, he was lucky he lived through his first three years of life.  From feeding him a steady diet of fried baloney to a stretch of  sitting daily in a poison ivy patch, he had a pretty tough start to life.

We all had our challenges growing up around Aunt Fay. She was a very strict disciplinarian and we all reacted differently…Dan, complete resistance, me, trying to stay invisible, and Tim, taking by far the brunt of the direction and oversight.  Aunt Fay’s primary objective was to keep us from going ‘bad’.  She continued to instill the same things as our Mother;  get good grades in school, be nice to people and be respectful.  I think we all did that as we all graduated from college and are basically nice to other people.  Like all families, we each are probably carrying our own baggage accumulated at different rates and times from the day we were born. 

We were very lucky they stepped up to keep all of us together as a family.  We could very easily have ended up in foster care with different families.  Aunt Fay ended her life knowing that we all loved and appreciated her.

Mike Young, Fay’s nephew