My Uncle Roy

Dad had gotten a phone call. My Aunt Nellie was very ill and had to have an operation. She was unable to take care of her children and my Uncle Roy was sick too. Mother went to work immediately and created a bedroom for them out of nothing. She got a crib from somewhere. Uncle Roy may have brought it with him. My cousin Jim was not very old at the time. I am thinking he was about my brother’s age so he would have been less than two years old.
Oh, I thought this was really wonderful. Full time company was something I had never experienced. I had someone to play with. I felt like smiling all the time. My cousin, Bonnie, and I got along really well. I was a selfish little girl, but I seemed to do alright with Bonnie.
My Uncle Roy had a terrible disease called psoriasis. From what I saw his head was thick with it. He had suffered from this for years. When he and Jim came to our house, he asked my mother if she could do anything about it. Every day my mother would “work” on it. She would put a newspaper on the floor in front of him. She had a steel bristle brush that she brushed his head with. Then she put some stuff on his head that she rubbed in and let it sit. Uncle Roy yelled something fierce, but he knew that it helped him. After the medicine had sat on his head for about twenty minutes, then Mom got out the Fitch’s Shampoo. That hurt him too, but every time he got this treatment, the psoriasis seemed to lesson.
Mother’s cure for every ailment was good nutrition. She knew that my Aunt had been sick for a long time, and Uncle Roy wasn’t cooking properly for the family. Mother was serving vegetables, meat, and fruit, and every meal had a very rich dessert. Uncle Roy’s skin and scalp started to be better with the treatments.
Uncle Roy went outside a lot with my dad and got lots of sunshine and fresh air.
My Uncle always had to deal with psoriasis, but at that particular time he did get better. The sounds of his laughter and the pounding of backs were heard every day while he and his children were visitors at our house. I smile every time I think about those days, I loved my Uncle Roy.