Paying it Forward

When we were in our twenties, my husband and I moved from the D.C. area to Austin, Texas, at a time when Austin rents were still comparable to a mortgage on a small home (aaah, the ’90s!). So we purchased a two-bedroom house in Rosedale, a cozy neighborhood settled in the 1940s near the University of Texas where the mostly tiny houses lacked dishwashers, garages or sidewalks, but compensated with mature Live Oak trees and other natural charm. My grandparents from Dallas fell in love with our place on their first visit, because it reminded them so much of their “starter home.”

We were welcomed to the neighborhood by our next-door neighbor, Mrs. Gest. Frieda Gest was one of several seniors still living on 40th Street, which was a dirt road when her first husband built their home. At 91 and widowed twice, she would walk with her cane to the chain link fence that separated our yards to chat, sometimes offering us a cutting from her yard or something she had baked. Whenever I took her an extra serving of whatever we had made for dinner, she always returned the container with homemade vanilla wafers in it. (I later learned that she kept a freezer full of cookies so that she always had something to offer.) These exchanges were always occasion for conversation that would often end with her genial “Now don’t rush off” and my pangs of guilt, even after an hour-long visit. … //READ MORE