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"Aunt Jane," Eliza Calvert Hall's most memorable character,
was a "plain old woman" of Kentucky. She first appeared in the
story "Sally Ann's Experience" dressed in a purple calico dress
with a white kerchief fastened at her throat. The pockets of her gingham
apron always held a piece of knitting or some other handiwork. Her cap
was a "substantial structure that covered her whole head and was
tied securely under her chin." Her voice was a "sweet old treble
with a little lisp, caused by the absence of teeth, and her laugh was
as clear and joyous as a young girl's."
While hearing about the colorful characters she has known, we also learn
that Aunt Jane enjoyed a companionable, egalitarian marriage to her husband
Abram, now deceased. Two of her brothers were killed in the Civil War,
and at least some of her children have also predeceased her. She occasionally
sees her adult grandchildren but prefers to remain at home, contentedly
sewing her quilts, tending her garden and "ricollectin'"
people and places from her past. Unafraid to speak her mind, she is nevertheless
an incurable optimist, accepting change gracefully and seeing all the
good and bad in her long life balancing out for the best--in many ways,
the opposite of her opinionated, care-worn and often unhappy creator.
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