Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about my Great Aunt Dodo. Ever since I opened my hall closet and a vintage overnight case tumbled down from a high shelf, hit me on the head, and landed a few feet away.

It is a pretty cool old bag – black with a zip-top, dome-shape and two handles. There is a small window on the front of the bag where the owner could slide a slip of paper with their name for identification purposes. “Rose Oien.” Rose was Dodo’s real name and Oien comes from her husband, Bernie Oien, whom she married in 1955.

I love this photo of Dodo. It is from the early 1940s. Rose Ann McMahon was born on December 28, 1908, in Tara Township near Clontarf, Minnesota. She was four years older than my grandma and the middle of seven children. How she came by the nickname Dodo, no one could ever tell me. Nicknames are sometimes like that.

Dodo always seemed like an old woman to me, with thinning white hair, printed cotton muumuus, and sensible black shoes. And it was always “Dodo and Bernie.” I don’t think I ever remember Dodo without Bernie, and I saw them fairly often when I was growing up. Bernie didn’t do anything to make Dodo seem less old. I could never really understand what he was saying. And Bernie had a wooden leg.

Bernie lost his real one in an elevator accident. It was a long time before I realized it was a grain elevator accident. I had always pictured the doors closing on Bernie as he just makes it into the elevator car. One of his legs stays behind in the lobby, pinched off in the heavy outer set of doors while the rest of Bernie keeps going up and up…

“Don’t be silly, Annie. That couldn’t happen,” I remember my mom saying when I mentioned something about how Bernie lost his leg.

Dodo and Bernie were married later in life and didn’t have children. When I was a kid, I thought that was the only reason people got married, so I asked my grandma why Dodo married Bernie.

“I guess Dodo wanted to go to a wedding.”

What a line.

When I think about Dodo, I will now always picture her as she is in this photo, with nicely styled hair, a regular dress, and that great smile.