Aunt Katherine Rauscher was not my favorite great aunt. There was a reason for this.

“You’re going to hell, you know,” she whispered threateningly, her face very close to mine. She had asked me to come with her and we were standing in Grandma’s darkened bedroom. I was about eight years old.

“You are a baptized Catholic. But I’ve heard that you are attending the Protestant Sunday school!” She spoke the words “Protestant Sunday school” as if it were something repulsive. She warned me to return immediately to the one Holy, (Roman) Catholic and Apostolic Church. Otherwise, I would burn in hell forever.

I was afraid of her. Although I didn’t really believe her, I wasn’t sure. After all, I was only eight years old. I was devastated that Aunt Katherine could be so judgmental about something that I liked so much. Later, at home, I cried for a long time over this nasty encounter.

Aunt Katherine wasn’t too high on my parents’ list of relatives either. At my parents’ wedding, Katherine had promised Mother to give her some silver cutlery. When Mother and Dad visited Katherine a short time later, she greeted the newlyweds by saying, “Oh, is this your wife? I haven’t met her yet.” So much for the promised silverware!

This was a variation of the story about how her father Josef Rauscher had brought back a shawl from Europe to give to his granddaughter Frances – Katharine’s niece. “She too young for this,” Katherine said. “I’ll keep it for her until she is old enough to appreciate it.” Frances never got the shawl.

Someone in the family once said that Katherine’s mission in life was to determine something at fault with other people and then tell them about it. After Katherine’s death, I met someone who had taught with her at Drew Elementary School in St. Paul. The woman told me that my great aunt had been her best friend. She went on and on about what a wonderful person she had been. Had that former teacher noticed the surprised look on my face?