Darling Nelly Gray

When I showed up at the nursing home today on my lunch hour, Grandma Great was still down in the dining room so I headed that way to give her a ride.  Often times, she is "the last one to leave" the dining room and she has to "sit there and wait" forever on someone to push her back to her room.  (I think she could probably wheel herself on down the hall, but...)

When I popped around the corner, I could see she had a visitor...her baby brother (and only living brother), "Nellie," as he has been known to me all of my life, was sitting next to her and they were chatting away.  As I have mentioned before, my grandma was one of five children, but the only girl.  And having met three of her four brothers, Oh my, is about all I can say.  They are/were characters!  I can only imagine what it was like growing up with them. 

It probably wasn't until I was attending the funeral of grandma's brother, Lowell, many years ago, that I finally learned that Nellie was a nickname for her baby brother, and then later on, that grandma had given it to him.  I never asked where she had come up with the nickname, only that she was the one responsible for it.

During my visit today, I was enlightened a bit on the story behind the nickname...Nellie was explaining to an employee of the nursing home that he was grandma's brother, baby brother, and grandma spoke up and said she had given him the nickname of Nellie.  Then they proceeded to tell the little tale, each adding tidbits here and there. 

My great-grandma would put my grandma (who was ten years older than Nellie) in charge of getting the baby calmed down while she was busy with things in the kitchen.  Grandma said she would go in the front room and sit down by the cradle and rock her little brother to sleep and sing, Darling Nelly Gray.  (Cue grandma and Nellie singing the chorus)  And yes, they were both singing a little there in the dining room...which is a hoot because none of us are known for singing!

I don't know if grandma was so desirous of a baby sister that she thought calling him Nellie would help, but soon grandma's little brother was dubbed, "Nellie" and it stuck.  He said he gets mail addressed to Nellie and even his checks come that way.  My guess is that there are quite a few people who don't realize that is only a nickname.  One of my grandma's other brothers had a nickname of "Sport," and if I remember correctly, that came from his favorite dog that died.  He was known by "Sport" until the day he died, although many knew that was only a nickname.

Later I looked up "Darling Nelly Gray" online (isn't Google great?), and I found several renditions on youtube (which is also great).  It is an African-American folksong written in 1856 by Benjamin Hanby.  It is a pretty catchy tune, and I couldn't help but tap my toes to the beat.  If you're interested and if I did this right, here is a link to the one I listened to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6RCmKMay9w&feature=related

I have a friend from Lawrenceville who used to crack up when I would talk about people from home because I would always say something like, "well, that's their nickname" or "that's not their real name, but that's what we call them."  She just couldn't understand why we didn't just call people by their names.  Hmm, I don't really know either...it just runs in my blood, I guess.