Seven Aunts

Part memoir, part cultural history, these memories of seven aunts holding home and family together tell a crucial, often overlooked story of women of the twentieth century They were German and English, Anishinaabe and French, born in the north woods and Midwestern farm country. They moved again and again, and they fought for each other when men turned mean, when money ran out, when babies—and there were so many—added more trouble but even more love. These are the aunties: Faye, who lived in California, and Lila, who lived just down the street; Doreen, who took on the bullies taunting her “mixed-blood” brothers and sisters; Gloria, who raised six children (no thanks to all of her “stupid husbands”); Betty, who left a marriage of indenture to a misogynistic southerner to find love and acceptance with a Norwegian logger; and Carol and Diane, who broke the warped molds of their own upbringing. From the fabric of these women’s lives, Staci Lola Drouillard stitches a colorful quilt, its brightly patterned pieces as different as her aunties, yet alike in their warmth and spirit and resilience, their persistence in speaking for their generation. Seven Aunts is an inspired patchwork of memoir and reminiscence, poetry, testimony, love letters, and family lore. In this multifaceted, unconventional portrait, Drouillard summons ways of life largely lost to history, even as the possibilities created by these women live on. Unfolding against a personal view of the settler invasion of the Midwest by men who farmed and logged, fished and hunted and mined, it reveals the true heart and soul of that history: the lives of the women who held together family, home, and community—women who defied expectations and overwhelming odds to make a place in the world for the next generation.

My six sisters and I along with seven of our aunts now own two asylums that were abandoned after we took them over and we just purchased our third abandoned asylum. The first asylum we purchased was the "Arkham Asylum" which we will eventually change this name. The second asylum we took over then purchased we renamed it the "D.A.I.B.E.O." asylum which has two different meanings. The first three initials means "Diffuse Axonal Injury" and the second three initials means "Banquet Event Order." We want to rename the third asylum we purchase "Carrieann's Venom Asylum" in memory of our grandma, our aunt's mother Carrieann who died at the land fill near the Arkham Asylum. There was a lot of evil went on at the Arkham asylum that the world don't know about. We decided to call our new asylum "Vickie's Daycare" in lew of the story behind this historic building. Vickie's Daycare's doors originally opened in the early 1800's and closed it's doors in the mid 1900's because of allegations of patients being chained in the basement unethically, neglecting, beating, and raping patients. From my experience so far maybe they deserved it. This asylum has a very special sad story attached to it. An innocent young beautiful girl named Vickie was falsely accused of murder and wrongfully sentenced to life in this asylum and kept in maximum confinement and deemed criminally insane. She was sane and had done none of the things they accused her of. After many years of shock therapy and taking drugs that would put down an elephant she finally did go insane. She attacked and murdered a group of inmates/patients and a counselor during a "Feelings" group meeting. She then hung herself in the main lobby. This is only one of many stories about the past of this asylum.

Join Elizabeth Walden as she ventures through a new life in a new country. On her journey, she learns of hardships, joy, and endurance, all the while relying on her Heavenly Father, the continuity of family, and giving her heart completely.