Russian Novelists...

...have absolutely nothing on southerners when it comes to multiplicity of names. I was thinking of this last night for no apparent reason. My mom’s family:

Eldest sister: Francis, known as Fanny (by her nieces and nephews) but by her brothers and sisters as Iss. Last row, second from right.

Then: Ada, known as Ada (by her nieces and nephews) but by her brothers and sisters as Di. She’s standing by her husband Archie in the picture, who’s holding her first child, Janice.

Then: Catherine, known as Kitty by everyone (far left).

Then: Mildred (my mom!), known as Bill by her elders, but called Mibby by her brothers and sisters, and Mildred by her nieces and nephews. She’s got her arms around her dad.

Then: James, known as Jimmy by everyone but his siblings who called him Bubby; he, however, called himself Stud (to many an eye roll!). He’s got the smoke in his fingers.

Then: Emma, known as Igg by her sisters and brothers; and for some odd reason my sister always called her Miss Emma; I always called her Aunt Emma. She’s kneeling behind her mom.

Then: Seldon, called Selly, I believe, by his brothers and sisters. He tragically died in a hunting accident at 16 years old. He’s ignoring the camera and cuddling his dog, Tippy (who waited for him to come home for weeks after he died; heartbreaking!).

Oh, and granddaddy was known as Tom (Joseph Thomas) and his wife as Martha. Martha had come to our home in Maryland to help mom with what she thought (mistakenly) was probably her last pregnancy, with my brother Maupin in 1951. And she suffered a heart attack and died just before he was born. My poor grandfather never really recovered from the loss of his youngest and then his wife. 

But imagine having to keep all that straight in a novel, and you’d soon be jotting notes on the characters’ various names like you have to do when you pick up a Dostoyevsky story!