This is my tenth A to Z Challenge. My first was in 2013, but I missed 2021. This April I am going through the alphabet using snippets about my family through the generations.

My uncle Winslow Shreve was Canadian. He pronounced the letter “Z” zed instead of zee. My sister Pearl and I found it interesting. And it gave me a new “Z” word!

Winslow was a pharmacist. He was married to my father’s sister, Anna who was also a pharmacist. At one point, when we were small, he also had a gas station. I remember while my mother was getting gas and chatting, Pearl and I climbed up on the big piles of snow that had been removed from the area. My mother pointed out that we were knocking the snow back down and to stop.

One summer I worked in the pharmacy with Winslow at North Detroit General Hospital. It was 1965 and my duties included delivering medications around the hospital and (my favorite) making salves by mixing the ingredients he gave me.

Years later, whenever I drove to Detroit from Idlewild, I would go by and talk to Winslow and Anna. They always had good family stories about the old days, their wedding, extended family, growing old.

Winslow died in 2010 from lung cancer after we had moved to Atlanta. I remember at Christmas time before he died, he and my aunt called and we talked for a short while. That memory still makes me tear up.