Aurelia Little passionately celebrated humanity. She believed in the essential worth of all humans while often loudly lamenting their failings, and was rarely neutral on any topic. She advocated a variety of social issues, carrying the banner for peace, civil rights, social justice and especially equal rights for women. When Aurelia was in the business world, the ceiling was not glass, it was brick, but it was her nature to rail against any system that denied any person’s right to move freely according to ambition and ability. As a friend said, I always made sure I was well-rested before I had a conversation with Aurelia.

But in spite of her Humanist beliefs, Aurelia was still a Romantic who understood the motives and values of both Don Quixote and Cyrano de Bergerac.  She embraced Unitarianism but could never quite relinquish the pleasure of celebrating Christmas and of making Easter eggs. Aurelia was adamant about claiming her place in the world, but, while secretly hoping she was wrong, she was sometimes cynical and suspicious of it. If she found a parking space on a downtown street, she would be certain that the space was restricted, and she would get a ticket for parking there. But woe be it to the man who tried to cut her off at an intersection, and many people in political life, from Presidents to Mayors, had their names prefaced in her conversations with the honorific that damned.

 She loved new places, adventures, clothes and especially food. It’s been said more than once that her memoir is more a catalog of the places she had eaten than the story of a young woman’s life.  Aurelia found satisfaction in ideas and intellectual challenges. She was proud of her role in helping create the General Motors Futurama Exhibit at the 1939 World’s Fair, her brushes with theatrical greatness in New York City, serving as co-chairperson of Hoosiers for Peace during the Vietnam War era and her participation in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. She was devoted to All Souls Unitarian Church, its people and its
organizations: More Light Guild, the Alliance, Forum and Fellowship for Social Justice.

Aurelia worked hard to be both mother and father to me at a time when every child lived in a Westinghouse world with picture-book parents. She taught Sunday school at All Souls, suffered as den mother for a mob of unruly Cub Scouts, sat through lots of Cub Scout and Little League baseball games where no one ever gets a hit and even the infielders go to sleep, went hiking and rock-hunting in Indiana’s state parks, played miniature golf, taught me to play canasta, to appreciate both science and theater and how to mix a good sidecar cocktail. My education in the social world was more complete than anyone I knew.

Aurelia Little lived through the better part of an entire century. She was proud that she had anticipated and accepted  technological and social changes scoffed at by her professors and contemporaries. And she was pleased to live to be 90. Blessed with good friends throughout her life, she influenced and  was influenced by many people in those 90 years. I am fortunate to have been her son.

Thomas William Little
May 2003


So live that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan that moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like the one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

Thanatopsis
William Cullen Bryant

and from Edna St. Vincent Millay:

My candle burns at both ends.
It will not last the night.
But Oh my foes and Oh my friends,
It is such a pretty sight.


Things I am considering at age 90
(written by Aurelia in February of 2003)

 Nations and/or tribes waging war against each other instead of banding together to fight extinctions from natural causes (global warming, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes. We have gone a long way towards controlling famine and plagues.)

 Only very recent attempts at elevating the females of the species to equal status as males, and then in advanced nations only. The primary purpose of females is still considered to be reproduction. (We are beginning to see the elimination of need for males and females to create life.)

 Worship of an out-of-earth mystical being called God and other names, who picks and chooses those favored or those to be destroyed. A being that controls all our actions. This may be an advance of the thousands of years of worship of multiple gods, but does not allow humans to have any control over  their destiny.

Disparity of races

 Uncontrolled sex drive

 Lack of universal health care. Development of new technologies re genes,  DNA cloning, etc.

 Disparity of brain power (questioning power) among all peoples of the world

 Disparity of education  world wide

 Unequal distribution of wealth

 Overpopulation

 Lack of concern and protection of our one earth

 Conflicting religions  world wide. Surrendering multiple gods for one god  has taken place in most beliefs, but what about abolishing the mystical or  supernatural altogether. Let humans take care of humans.