CHAPTER 8
Of all the relatives and friends inside the Leigh house that day, Bertha was the only unwelcome addition. Bertha was Gert’s second cousin and she had long been a hefty pain in everyone’s neck except for Gert. Being the gentle soul that she was, Gert never turned Bertha away. And on that tragic day, Bertha was still her less-than-compassionate self. She had stormed out of the house earlier that afternoon and drove uptown; on her way out she muttered something about all of the noise in the house. She always found the worst in any situation and rode that situation until it buckled underneath her.
Prior to her going into town, Bertha’s insensitivity reached its peak. She had bickered with no one in particular about how Fred was “sitting out on that porch hoopin’ and hollin’ like a fool.” She even made mention of the twins “with them nappy heads and dirty clothes” and how they “need a good scrubbin‘. Gert would have a fit if she seen how them poor child’n was looking.” On and on she rambled, nonstop, without any attempts to fix any of the situations that she deemed broken, until Ginnie Mae and Homer verbally forced her from the house.
Bertha was the first cousin to Gert’s mother and was quite a few years older than Gert and Fred. She lived in Memphis but she spent a lot of her time in Leesville, where she was known by most of the residents as a nosy busybody. She lost her job at a food factory in Memphis about eight years prior. Coupled with the loss of her husband to another woman in the same year, Bertha seemed to have spun out of emotional control.
Bertha had made it known years prior that she disapproved of Gert’s choice in husbands, saying Fred was too “lowly and uneducated” for inclusion in the family, even though she too was uneducated. For many years she attempted to control the personal lives of some of her family members by trying to tell them what they should or should not do, say, think or believe; and she always voiced ignorant opinions at the most inopportune times.
Most family members felt her deeply-set anger and jealousy stemmed from the loss of her husband. She had no children and no hobbies. She never remarried and everyone felt that it was a wise decision on someone’s part. Still, Gert had held a genuine tolerance for her cousin’s actions; she’d often voiced sympathy for Bertha’s behavior.
On Friday, two days after Gert’s passing and two days before her burial, the Leigh' home spilled over with comings and goings of well wishers from across the country. Neighbors as well as local business people kept a steady flow of traffic from their homes to the Leigh’ home with food, money and kind words in tow.
Fred was able to pull himself together well enough to carry on conversations and assist with funeral arrangements for his beloved Gert. He was deeply moved by the outpouring of genuine support he received from everyone; this support helped him maintain a safe level of physical and emotional strength during the days ahead.