Why "Miss Rosa"?

Del reminded me that some of you might not know why I called Mother Miss Rosa, and Daddy Mr. Willard (pronounced Wullad). I thought I had bored everybody I ever knew with that story, but maybe not. Growing up on a farm in the late '40's and on, as the much younger second child, I often played outside by myself. I could push the screen doors to get out, but was not tall enough to reach the handles to pull the doors open to get back in. If I wanted to get in the front door, I called "Mama", but if I wanted in the back door, I thought I had to call "Miss Rosa". Reason being that close neighbors and people who worked on the farm always came to the back door, knocked and called out Miss Rosa or Mr. Willard. I suppose I thought the back door required a special password to get in.

It is also true that then, as now, children in the South often called friends of their parents and their neighbors Mr. or Miss fill in a first name here. When we moved North the first time, I was surprised to discover that children often called adults by their first names. We were not in any way offended by that, but we continued in our old ways as far as David was concerned. (After all, we fully intended to get him back to the Promised Land as soon as possible, and we wanted him to be presentable, even if he didn't have the appropriate accent.) He once commented that the custom of "Mam" and "Sir" is really convenient, because if you forget someone's name, you can just substitute one of those.

When we moved to Akron, we had the privilege of meeting a lady of a certain age who had been secretary or administrative assistant to a former president of the University and who continued to be a generous and respected friend to the University after retirement. She was a member of the Friends of the Library board, and one night during refreshments at a meeting at our house, she said to me, "My Dear, don't you think you are old enough to call me Caroline?" Frankly, I didn't think I would ever get old enough for that, but she seemed okay with Miss Caroline. We also felt most comfortable calling Annetta Karam, who became one of our dearest friends, Miss Annetta. It seems more appropriate than Annetta for someone who still audits classes at 96 and who can eat 5 scoops of ice cream without batting an eye, and without gaining an ounce.