Happy Birthday, Dear Charlotte!

 

April 21 is the birthday of Charlotte Bronte, one of the three sisters from whom Charlie McDonald got her three names.


From "Aunt Pooh Channels Nelly Dean", December 19, 2013:


In those days,” Aunt Pooh continued, “they didn’t have ultrasounds like they do now.  Your mother told me she was really hoping you’d be a girl.  She said she was only going to have one child, so he or she would be spared having older siblings bossing them or younger ones getting away with stuff they couldn’t and would never have to worry whether she and their father liked the others better.”

“Classic middle child,” Karen said.

“Exactly.  And she was the only scientist in a family of artsies.  My father taught English and my mother painted.  My brother is a music teacher.  He was never into books that much; I guess that’s why he agreed to give the children those names.*  That upset my mother more than Louie’s getting pregnant with a married man.” 

“It probably made her feel excluded.”  Karen and Nikki were in their element, practicing amateur analysis.

“Why, I never thought of that, but I bet that’s true.  She didn’t like to be out of the loop.  But, of course, she didn’t interfere, although she complained to Louie and me.  ‘Those children are going to feel like outcasts in the family,’ was how she put it.  She blamed him more than Judy.  Judy and her brothers and sisters were the five J's. ”

“But didn’t Charlie’s mother read?  After all she named her after the Brontes.”

“Well, that was my idea.  She wanted to name Charlie after our mother, but her name was Alice (Alice in Wonderland, you know) and your father’s first wife’s name was Alicia.  Actually, I wanted Emily Charlotte Anne, since Emily was really the better writer, but she liked Charlotte -- the name, I mean.  She probably hadn’t even seen the movies, since we didn’t have Netflix then.” 

*Most of the children in my mother's family were given names taken from literature, but Uncle Hank's children are Jessica, Jason, and Jennifer.  Uncle Hank's name is Henry James;  Aunt Judy wanted him to start calling himself H. James, but he wouldn't do it.

For more background, see "Cast of Characters". February 27, 2015.