1.
     Dm                    C
Aunt Anna will turn ninety-nine this year
        C                           Dm
All her friends have died off long ago
     Dm                         C
It's harder these days for Aunt Anna to hear
     C                      Dm
It's harder still for us to know
     F           Em         Bb     Dm
What thoughts go on in Aunt Anna's head.
    Dm             C        Em
Sometimes her eyes seem so alive.
     F            Em            Bb      Dm
This could be the last year for Anna to live,
      Dm           C           Em
We've said for the last twenty-five!
     F          Em         Dm
Aunt Anna still finds it a nice thing to do
   F           Em           Dm
To put all the young people on.
       F          Em            Dm
With a wink and a smile all her mirth will show through
    C                      Dm
And two moments later it's gone.

/ / Aunt Anna, page 2 of 3

2.
     Dm                    C
Aunt Anna will turn ninety-nine this year
    C                           Dm
Her breath comes sometimes in a wheeze.
    Dm                           C
She burps when she wants like an infant child
     C                  Dm
Aunt Anna has no one to please.
        F        Em     Bb    Dm
And the children cannot comprehend
        Dm       C           Em
And the old ones say she's insane
    F   Em             Bb Dm
And sometimes she's so aimless
    Dm      C         Em
She doesn't know what words to say
              Dm
      or what games to play
        F       Em        Dm
And I'd love to tell her, no, you're not old,
        F       Em      Dm
And I'd love to see her go on
       C
       smiling
             Dm
             baby-wise.

Mary Jo's Great-Aunt Anna lived to be ninety-nine years old. It was an honor to know her.

There are many Aunt Anna stories to tell, but I will leave them to those who knew her better. Here, though, are two of my favorites, one from before I knew her, and one of my own experience.

I am told that when President Richard Nixon was resigning, some young person (to Aunt Anna, everyone was a young person) asked her what she thought about it. After a pause, in her creaky old voice, she commented, "He just couldn't believe he got the job!" Probably no political analyst ever summed it up better.

One day wife Mary Jo and I were going across the street for some ice cream, and we were "taking orders" from anyone else who wanted some. My mother-in-law, Mary Jo the first, turned to Aunt Anna and asked, "Do you want some ice cream?" Anna, hard of hearing, croaked, "Whaaat?" Mary Jo I repeated the question, "Do you want some ice cream?" and Anna, frustrated a bit by her ailing body as she often was, asked with greater intensity, "WHAAAAT?" At which point, in that way some people do some times, Mary Jo I spoke loudly enough to be heard, but this time changed the question, "DO YOU LIKE ICE CREAM?" The message registered in Anna's face, a moment of startle, a brief look of puzzlement, and then she repeated, "Do I like ice cream?" She looked me right in the eye, winked boldly, and replied, "Noooo, I don't like ice cream." With a wink and a smile all her mirth would show through; and two moments later, it's gone. I'll always remember.