Winter Guests

WINTER GUESTS

After World War II, when they were retirement age, my grandparents started a business venture. Native Floridians, they opened their home to “winter guests.” Their children were grown and I think it evolved naturally from my grandmother’s inborn hospitality and my grandfather’s experience as a contractor. He remodeled the upstairs into four apartments along with two more over the garage, and it wasn’t long before they attracted “snowbirds” from up north. One in particular held my fascination – an old-maidish lady whom I was encouraged to call Miss Elsie. She and a small number of “regulars” stayed there every winter for forty years.

I first remember her about 1955, when I was seven years old. She fascinated me. I had never seen anyone like her before. I knew she was a grownup, but she looked like an old little girl. She had baby blue eyes and curly gray hair in ringlets, such as might peek out from under a bonnet. She would stand at the open door of the living room and sort of coo for my grandmother. She usually had to call several times, because Grandma was hard of hearing and the kitchen was at the other end of the house. Many times I would just go and fetch her, as I was irritated at my dignified little grandmother being “called.” I see now that Miss Elsie was just observing proper etiquette. Although Grandma was actually relaxed about these things, to Miss Elsie it would have been a breach of good manners to cross the threshold without being invited in.

My grandparents’ place was not a boarding house. My grandmother didn’t serve meals. She did enjoy cooking, but I think Granddaddy would have seen it as an intrusion and besides, my mother and my aunts didn’t want Grandma working even harder and “slinging hash”, as they called it. Fortunately for the guests, the Grey Gull Inn was half a block away, right on the bay. It was a small hotel, very genteel. Miss Elsie usually ate dinner there or had it delivered in a big wicker basket, with china and silver nestled in snowy white napkins. I was fascinated by the extravagance; we never had meals delivered to our door. Unfortunately for Miss Elsie, she could no longer avail herself of this luxury in later years. By the 1970s the Grey Gull Inn went with the times and dinner came on paper plates, with disposable napkins and plastic utensils. I remember the day I heard her telling her my grandmother this, horrified. Grandma was practical and had grudgingly adapted to wasteful “throw-aways”, but tactfully kept her opinion to herself.

When I was about ten, something exciting about Miss Elsie happened. I heard my Aunt Peg giggling about it with my mother. Apparently they had just found out that many years ago Miss Elsie had been married! She had been a bride for about a month, Aunt Peg whispered to Mom, “but she didn’t like it.” In my mind it added an element of mystery and savoir faire to proper little Miss Elsie. Anyway, it seemed her husband wasn’t one to hold a grudge. He was gentlemanly about it and continued to supplement the small inheritance that she lived on. I got the impression that he was quite a bit older, so how long this went on I’m not sure. At any rate, I believe she lived to her late eighties and only death stopped her winter visits.

Grandma continued to keep her house open in the winter until a year before her death at age ninety-three. I believe that she knew one secret of a good life – work hard at something you enjoy. And make friends along the way.