Don't call her Nelda

One of the Heathers, who I have been friends with ever since Miss Johnson's 6th grade Social Studies class, has a mother named Alice. Alice's middle name is Nelda, which is what I've called her for nearly 20 years. It is also what Heather called her. This morning, I received this email from Heather...

It is with great sadness that I bring you the following news:

My mother Alice, also known by many as NELDA, told me that her middle name was never NELDA. Turns out her mother told her that for some crazy reason when she was little and she believed her. Never seeing her birth certificate, she believed for many years that her middle name was NELDA.

Now, why did her mother tell her this? We have no idea. But, turns out her first name isn't even Alice either. Her real name is Marie Alice. Can you believe this news? She sent away for some kind of family tree thing and located her birth certificate somehow and the name on it reads....Marie Alice. She found out that every girl born in her family back then was named Marie after her grandmother. Well, needless to say, it became rather confusing when everyone's name was Marie so they started to call them by their middle names instead, which is where Alice came from.

So, yes her middle name is no longer NELDA. But, she will always be NELDA to me.

She'll always be Nelda to me, too.