Aunt Bee Hunter Crain, 23 Skiddoo!

 Posted on Facebook years ago:

23 Skidoo! (whatever that means). The Roaring 20s young lady on the right is Beatrice Elizabeth "Bea" Hunter Crain (1903-1971). I heard the reason of Bea's nickname "Bea" is because one of her younger brothers, my father, could not pronounce Beatrice when he was a toddler and the big family adapted. Bea was the only daughter of nine kids and the only one born outside of Georgia (Hunt County, Texas). Before she married she was a Southern Bell Telephone operator in the days before they had telephone dialing. Instead of dialing you would tell her who you wanted, and as a small town as Marietta was at the time, probably you could tell her the first name only. In 1931, Bea married Robert Spencer Crain (1903-1991), who owned several local businesses. They had five children and took in some of Spencer's orphaned kin and raised them as their own.

Bea was very generous and opened her house for family wakes, I remember visiting both my Hunter grandparents' bodies (two years apart) in her living room, and hosting big family get-togethers.