This was Aunt Jessie's lawn mower.  I assume it's an antique because she had it for as long as I can remember and she died in 1982.  She kept it in her basement and actually used it to mow the grass.  I admired it and told her she could leave it to me.  So after she died and the family gathered to go through her possessions, my parents came back with this mower for me.  I don't really know what to do with it, but I can't bring myself to get rid of it. 

Note that the wheels are metal--no rubber tires.  I'm pretty sure it never had them, so it predates rubber wheels.  Stenciled in all caps on the wooden shaft are the words "NEW INVADER BALL BEARING".  Those words are also molded into the metal wheels.  I wonder what the old/original invader looked like?

Both of these are pictures of Jessie Van Pelt Lipscomb, a.k.a. Aunt Jessie.  When I knew her, she lived on Maple Shade Lane in Richmond with her husband, Uncle Joe. She was one of my grandmother's sisters--the second oldest of the Van Pelt children. 

I remember staying with her for about a week one summer.  She took me on my first ride on a city bus.  If I hadn't done that, I might not have known to pull the cord to let the driver know you want to get off at  the next stop.  That knowledge came in handy when I moved to DC.  We rode the bus to a hardware store so that she could buy a file.  She told me that her toenails were too think to use a regular nail file and that's why she needed this tool.  Plus it was longer, so it was easier for her to reach her toes with it.

The squirrels on her street were so used to people that they would come up and eat out of your hand.  For a kid from the country, that was remarkable!

Her house was small by today's standards, but it had some cool features.  For one, she had a booth in her kitchen instead of a table. And she had stairs going up to her attic.  Also, her back porch was covered in wisteria.  It was pretty in the spring, but I liked playing with the pods.

At Christmas, she served this dessert that was like ice cream balls coated with flaked coconut.  Yummy! I think it came already fixed that way in a box & she just served it.  But I didn't have it anywhere else, so it reminds me of her.

Aunt Jessie liked ice, especially crushed ice cubes.  So she had this gadget she called a tap icer (or maybe she made that up). Wait. Nope!  Thanks to Google, here's a picture of it.  You would hold it at the end of the handle and jiggle it up & down on the ice. 

As far as Uncle Joe goes, I don't remember much about him. I was 9 years old when he died.  I do, however, remember him sitting in the living room at a card table reading with a magnifying glass.  He was quiet compared to Aunt Jessie. 

The most important thing about Aunt Jessie is that she is responsible for my parents meeting each other.  But that's a story in itself, so I'll save it for another day.