Everyday Things Keep Sisters Close
I ‘ve never had a sister.
Maybe that’s why I was so intrigued by the Woodward girls.
They’re not really “girls” anymore. They’re not even Woodwards anymore.
But they are three of the closest sisters I’ve ever met.
They grew up in Millwood, and have spent a combined 200-plus years within a two-mile radius of their childhood home.
Having lived in 10 different cities myself, it’s a hard thing to imagine. Few of us have roots so deep - or so intertwined.
It makes me a bit jealous.
Their family came to the Valley exactly 80 years ago, riding the old Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad from Massachusetts. Hazel Anderson was 10. Bernice Gibson was 3. Ruby Witham wasn’t yet born.
“When we came, Argonne was a dirt road,” remembers Bernice, now 83.
They moved into a brick house at the corner of Argonne and Valleyway, where the Washington Trust Bank building now stands. A year later, they moved to Millwood, building a home in a locust grove along East Empire Avenue.
The girls all grew up there. One of them, Ruby, married and settled into a home just two houses over.
She’s spent more than 70 years on the same block - within yards of her childhood home.
It’s hard for me to imagine. Just last spring, I traveled 3,000 miles to visit my own childhood home. Walking the streets of Timonium, Maryland - past friends’ homes I once played in, past where Shelly Quimby skinned her knee and bled all over the sidewalk - was incredibly intense.
It’s still that way for Ruby.
Glancing into the back yard, she can still see her sisters sitting on the roof of the old shed. The girls spent hours there, watching the planes take off and land at Felts Field. With few nearby homes, they had a great view.
Driving past the paper mill, she remembers the old swimming pool that once drew hordes of neighborhood kids. On Thursdays, she and her sisters would walk down to the bandstand, set up nearby, to listen to free music.
Ruby has spent the last 60 years filling scrapbooks with newspaper clippings of Millwood news: bridal announcements, local boys lost in wars, town festivals and town controversies.
The town is very different now, she said.
And so are the sisters.
They’re much closer.
Had they spread out across the country - like so many siblings - it probably wouldn’t have happened.
Instead, they chose to stay.
They married, built modest homes and raised children. In between, they played dominos together, cooked meals together and shopped together at the local grocery store.
Each Thursday, they head to the nearby Albertson’s. They’ve been doing it for more than a decade. Two of the sisters - Ruby and Hazel - have been shopping together for more than 40 years.
On a recent trip, all three got hugs from a store employee. She was leaving her job and wanted them to know she’d miss them.
It’s these things - the everyday things - that draw you close, Bernice said.
Weekend visits and yearly reunions can’t make up for them.
I think I know what she means. My own five brothers live in five different states. Each time I see them, my nieces and nephews have grown into completely different people.
I love them, but I’m not sure I know them.
The Woodward sisters truly know each other.
“We’re just so fortunate,” said Bernice, who believes people, not money, are the basis of wealth.
“Sometimes your own children are busy, they don’t have time,” Hazel said.
But sisters… “If we need something, they’ll do it for us,” Ruby said.
“We always had what we really needed.”