The Property
Aunt Dixie
Brooklyn’s family has lived in the same town, on the same road, on the same land for 70 years. A beautiful 50-acre plot on the prairie littered with trees, hayfield, small ponds, an old barn, berry bushes, and the occasional bog. Back in 1952 Aunt Dixie and Uncle Bob purchased the land which was once an old dairy farm. They did not have any birth children of their own but prided themselves in raising everyone they could, including Brooklyn’s grandmother when her own mother passed.
Dixie and Bettie share a father and when Dixie’s mother passed her father needed some help to raise his two daughters. He enlisted help from a young woman who was looking for work and what began as work turned into marriage. She had two sons and a daughter, Bettie. With her third birth, she passed away from complications. By this time Dixie was of an age where she could take over child care so she helped raise her siblings until they were grown and married.
She married and settled down on the 50 acres with her husband, Bob. Bettie moved right across the street with her husband, Brooklyn’s grandfather. Bettie and Charlie had four sons and Dixie and Bob were both so proud of the boys that they essentially considered them their own as well. When Uncle Bob passed away Aunt Dixie continued to rule her roost and help Bettie try to wrangle the four boys till they were old enough to marry and start their own families. Dixie was always very passionate that no one in her family ever is homeless so she always planned she would split the 50 acres evenly between the four boys when the time came. When Dixie passed away in 2000 she left the now 43 acres to her sister Bettie with the beautiful sentiment that their boys always have a home.
The eldest son built a home right next door to her and across from his parents, the third son moved onto the far back corner with his family, and the youngest, David, moved in on the other side of Dixie with his wife and daughter, Brooklyn. The area David moved onto had originally been where the homestead house, a chicken coop, and an old barn of unknown age were. The old house had been torn down, the chicken coop was becoming one with a tree, and the barn was slightly falling down but somehow still had an awe factor about it and felt almost magical. There were no longer any dairy cows on the property and the chickens had long gone so these two buildings were used mostly for storage.
Brooklyn grew up on that little sliver of the prairie from age two until eighteen. She spent her days exploring the woods, running through the hayfield, pretending to dance with fairies under the old pecan trees, and playing hide and seek up in the old barn rafters. When her parents had to work and before school age, she stayed with Aunt Dixie or her grandmother and they taught her a myriad of fun activities. She played in the garden, watered the plants in the greenhouse, painted old wood chips to look like watermelon slices, hung the clothes out on the line, and got lots of bug bites and sunburns. At night the coyotes howled at the back of the property and bobcats stalked the tree lines. Raccoons snuck onto the porch to steal dog food and bluebirds bathed in the birdbath under the light of stars. Nothing quite beats stargazing in the country. When she grew up and had to go off to college her father kept the magic of the prairie alive for her to always come home to. He and her mother had gone their separate ways her senior year of high school but her mother was just on the other side of the prairie. When David passed away in 2016 a small part of the magic went with him and that part of the property went stagnant for a few years.
October 2021. Baby Hope is three months old and suburban life is proving to be nothing like we hoped it would be. The loud music blaring from neighbors as they drive by wakes the baby from her naps, the constant foot traffic in front of the house stirs the dogs to no end, the never-ending pine needles have killed all of the peppers and tomatoes we try to plant but the trees cannot be removed without permission and a hefty bill. Day after day construction drones on as everyone gets new fences installed and pools dug. The convenience of being close to things is beginning to be far outweighed by all the negatives. We find ourselves escaping back to the prairie every chance we get. We need a reprieve. Our families are all within ten minutes of each other out there.
After a visit with Brooklyn’s grandmother, a conversation comes up.
“Mee-maw, what are you hoping for the future of the property? What are your desires for the area where Dad lived?”
“We were hoping you and Jaken would move back out to the prairie and become our neighbors.”
“Can we?”
We will.
