Sunday, February 13, 2022
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+ 5
Part of the Eulogy on Saturday Morning
Dorothy Ileen Wyman Mc Cully White.
Aunt Dot. She will remain everyone’s favourite aunt.
Ten years younger than my Dad and a dozen years older than Joan, Bonnie and Tom, 16 years older than me.
She was young enough to be our friend but just that bit older to give us a glimpse of what it meant to be an adult. She was blessed with Wyman sunniness with a cloud or two of Wyman obstinance.
She was adventuresome and open minded – for a Wyman.
She always knew what was going on in town and kept an eye on world affairs.
Her adventures began when she married Gerry McCully straight out of high school. Jesse and Emma Jane did not think that was the best idea but Gerry was flying high in the RCAF,
the war had ended, what could go wrong?
In a few years, Gerry was posted to Germany. I do not think they were there much more than 2 years but Aunt Dot got to see the castles, the casinos, mountains and the vineyards of Europe.
For those who welcomed her back, she may as well have been Marco Polo.
She brought music boxes, clocks, bracelets for all of us. I am sure there are at least 3 gold mantle clocks still telling time here on the East Coast.
Dorothy surprised me one day about how she had taken voice lessons and that her father wanted her to have singing career.
She sang “Indian Love Call” at her graduation from high school in 1947. She was really with the times because this was General Eisenhauer’s favourite tune, too.
The only other snippet I know straight from Aunt Dot is the story of how the whole family believed they weren’t going to make it when their boat lost power off Ragged Head near Millidgeville. The wind came up and they were in danger of being dashed on the rocks. Dad recounted that, too. I never knew the end of it but obviously they survived.
Kenneth, our Dad was 10 years older than Dot. She said how he hated to have to take her to school. He said that he didn’t like taking a Baby with him. He would always walk ahead.
When Phyllis and Dorothy appeared at our house in Gondola Point, my sisters and I stayed close to the conversation.
They were the city aunts - we were the country kids.
Aunt Dot was always stylish for a Sunday visit in a smart dress – one she had made.
Jane, Susan and I marveled at Dot and Phyllis’s painted fingernails, bright rings and open toed shoes. And they would always be laughing, regaling us with their misadventures.
When our mother, Phyllis Roberts dies, Dot became a Gran of sorts to our brother, Nealon and Michael.
For all of us, Dot was a cheer leader. She was always at a graduation or some special “do-ins”. She always had a card and most of the times, with a crisp, new bill in it.
Dot and Mel were just as cheerful and just as concerned and interested in all of the nieces and nephews. Their golf life seemed exotic, travelling to the Carolina’s, Florida. It was not until I read Aunt Dot’s obituary did I realize that she was a mainstay of the Rockwood golf course ladies.
With photos, songs and kind words, you can never sum up a person. There are so many facets.
Dot was the Wyman family’s doted daughter, the Baby.
She was beautiful, she was headstrong, she saw a bit of the world.
When she had to strike out on her own in her late 30s, she did.
She valued her job helping to set up the fledgling University of New Brunswick in Saint John.
She told me where and when she met Mel and it was his persistence that won her heart. She took a chance and she and Mel were a love match to the end.
During these past days, seeing Dot’s life like a book that has closed, I think my memory of her will be shaped by the picture I found of her as a little girl.
She is like Lucy, in a circle of light after travelling through the large world of the closet in “ The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe”.
Lucy took the adventure of life with Joy and that was our Aunt Dot, too.
