SpiritualGuides

One of my Spiritual Guides - Great Aunt Carrie

Over the past couple of years two friends have reported to have had visitations from a feisty lady one giving me a message the other one instructing her to send me much needed energy. On the first occasion I suspected it to have been Great Aunt Carrie, because of the way that she spoke - very abrupt and to the point "Ring her now!" is what my friend was told after had she decided to rest before she rang me. Yep, Great Aunt Carrie.

The second my friend was trying to describe her to me from a dream that she had whereby she was requested to send me energy and she woke up and did just that giving me a hug too. I woke up in the middle of the night feeling all this energy (we live over 200 miles apart) and I felt the hug but wasn't sure whom it was from. The next day I was 'on line' talking to her and mentioned this energy and hug and she was amazed and told me about her dream. We discussed this lady and I asked her to describe her to me then told her to go look at the photo album on my genealogy site and tell me if she could see this lady amongst them. Sure enough she came back and said "Caroline it was Caroline!"

I now believe that Great Aunt Carrie is one of my Spiritual Guides.

Great Aunt Carrie was born c1896 but I know very little about her young life other than that she had 7 siblings including my Grandmother. From a newspaper cutting, found in amongst her possessions, she was a 'manly' young lady. Was she a tomboy then? Did my Grandmother who was very pretty overshadow her? I will probably never know these answers but I can surmise. According to the newspaper clipping Carrie was Captain of the lady's college cricket team, played hockey, won at most sports and captain of the swimming team as well as being head girl of the college phew! Have any of the family lived up to this since - I think not.

She went on to become a nurse and I have a photo of her in her uniform with her Army Officer boyfriend to whom she became engaged to - What a handsome couple they made. Unfortunately he was to die in the First World War and Carrie never looked at another man again (well this is what we are led to believe, but again who knows?). She travelled the world nursing and finally settled with her close friend in Gargrave, outside Skipton, North Yorkshire. There she took up first the post of District Nurse and then Nursing Officer for District Nurses in the area (Matron of the District Nurses).

My recollections of her are at this house. She had beautiful old furniture and curios and I do recall her advising me, well telling her that I was to be married, that I should buy old furniture and not that modern stuff that never lasts. What sound advice that I never took, ah well we live and learn. She also had these amazing brass lions as fire dogs and every time we visited I asked if I could clean them, I just loved cleaning them and holding them. Aunt Carrie once said that she would give them to me in her Will but unfortunately she had received them from someone who had Willed them to her out of their family and she was going to Will them back to the family. I was disappointed but understood. When she died it was discovered that her Neighbours had taken her to their solicitors and had her make up a new Will, in this Will they received a carved blanket box that they had obviously coveted. Aunt Carrie had the beginings of Alzheimer's at the time. No mention of the lions was made in the new Will and the old Will had somehow disappeared. So I am now the proud owner of those Brass Lions.

Well maybe I am painting a picture of a lovely old lady - well she was but she was also a very abrupt, speak her mind, type of person that did not suffer fools gladly. When my sisters and I where young it was with terror that we entered her house or received her as a visitor, because she was not backwards in telling us off for bad manners or behaviour - even when we thought we where being extremely good!! Frighten of her was to say the least, but she was at heart a very kind generous person, hey she was a nurse after all. She just did not or would not tolerate bad behaviour. I also recall one conversation she was telling us about syphilis, (have no recollections as to why, she was probably lecturing us on errrmmmm sex.) and she told us that you could tell if someone had it by smell. Well being curious we asked what it smelt like, "what do you want to know that for!" she barked at us. "If you've got it you'll know about it!" - well blushes all round when we realised she thought that we might have it - hell we were only around 11 at the time what did she expect us to be doing.

One for the smokers here - Aunt Carrie chain-smoked and saw no harm in it, her reasoning? "Well" she would say, "When you go into some of the disease ridden hovels that I have had to enter the only protection is smoking," so she would light up a cigarette to protect herself from disease. Nothing would get through the hot smoke that would enter her mouth cause, as far as she was concerned, it would be sterilised. Would a District Nurse get a way with attending a patient with a cig in her mouth nowadays?

Aunt Carrie was also one of the first people, let alone women, in the district to drive and own a car (yes we are talking that far back). She would travel all over the dales and lake district to attend patients in all weathers, most times driving the car as afar as possible then getting out and walking. Anyone who knows the dales and lakes will appreciate what a feat this must have been for her.

She had beautiful clothes, not that I ever saw her wearing them, but when she was done with them she would pass them onto my mother. One particular dress was a great favourite with my sisters and me and when my mother wasn't around, we would sneak into her bedroom and dress up in it. It was a very deep turquoise in a lovely material, not sure but think it could have been chiffon, but it had a fine pleated full skirt that squished and I believe it had a silk underskirt to it. My mother accepted it gratefully but I never ever saw her wear it.

In her retirement, which is the only time I knew her, she would go for holidays abroad, even going on a safari in her old age. My parents believe that this was too much for her and it was after the return from this holiday that she started to suffer from bad health. Toward the end of her life, as I said, she had Alzheimers and could no longer look after herself so my parents decided to look after her, she had after all looked after them. Well my mother got to hate her in the end, she used to go to toilet in the wardrobe and smoke in bed and burn the bedclothes, burn the settee with her cigarettes until my mother was beside herself. In the end they were advise to place her in a nursing home, which they did and as my mother justified that Aunt Carrie had always said that if she ever had Alzheimers to place her in a home cause she would know no difference. Well I can report that the last months of her life where enjoyable for her, she was in her element, back in a hospital, the nurses loved her even when she would stop them with their trolley and inspect it, back to her Matron days.

I did come to love this old lady very dearly and use to visit her whenever I could (we all lived in East Yorkshire). Her words would always be "Well you never change!" I am so glad that she is now looking out for me in the Spiritual World and feel very blessed.

Thankyou, Aunt Carrie xxx

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