When I was probably in the second grade, I went in with my dad to a local small motor repair shop to pick up something he had dropped off. When he went to pay the bill, he asked the lady who handled the books what she had been doing lately.
“Going over to Keokuk and setting off fires was her answer.”
For the longest time, I thought she was the person responsible for setting the string of fires in the nearby river town. She was kidding, but sometimes kids do not realize that.
Was there something joked about and great aunt Myrtle, when she was a very small child, over head it and believed it?
And then repeated it to you?
2 Responses
When I was 7 years old, living in England, our previous neighbours In N. Ireland, Came to visit & took me back with them for an extended “holiday”. One day I came in from playing with young friend across the “Square” & said to “Aunt Mollie” “Mrs Flit wants to know if she can borrow some sugar? “Aunt Mollie’s face blanched & she said “Kathleen, you didn’t call her that did you? ” I didn’t think I called her anything. but “I” didn’t know that wasn’t her name……it’s what my Mum & Aunt Mollie always called her. I found when I was older that it was because “She kept Flitting in & out of her house!!”
That’s how some nicknames come into being as well.