Remembering Aunt Bee: A fictional character in a TV series became as real and beloved as she was unforgettable in Daydreaming on the Porch

AUNT BEE: Remember, first you eat the sandwiches, and then you eat the apple pie. Not the apple pie and then the sandwiches. Do you understand?
OPIE: Yeah, I understand, even if it doesn’t seem right.

AUNT BEE: Why doesn’t it seem right?

OPIE: Well, if you get full before you finish, I’d sure rather leave over the pie than the sandwiches.

AUNT BEE: I know. And that’s exactly why I want you to do it the other way. And don’t you forget it.
OPIE: Okay, Aunt Bee. Can I have a nickel for milk?
AUNT BEE: Uh-huh. Now remember, this is for milk, not another piece of apple pie. You need that milk to make your bones hard.

And another thing:
AUNT BEE: (To Andy) That boy. I declare, he’s got the sweetest tooth I ever saw…

ANDY: Now that’s not surprising Aunt Bee, considering the green thumb you’ve got for apple pies.

AUNT BEE: Nonsense. He’s just apple pie crazy.
(From the Andy Griffith Show)

The older I get the more I appreciate the Andy Griffith Show. I grew up with it in the early 60s, but as an adult I have come to love the show with a depth that only the passage of time can bring. I know the situations and dialog may seem dated and corny to a new generation watching it today, but it was life — it was real enough for a TV series, it was warm and it was funny. There was a humaneness and sense of values that are seemingly lost or ignored today.

I know the show was filmed in a studio in Hollywood, and that the lake where Andy and Opie went fishing is in the mountains north of Los Angeles, but Mayberry always seemed like a real place, and it was, for it was based on the town where Griffith grew up, Mt. Airy, North Carolina.

I visited that town up near the Blue Ridge Mountains years ago, and walked down Main Street on a quiet Sunday afternoon when, unfortunately, Floyd’s Barber Shop was closed as well as the cafe Andy used to regularly frequent, “The Snappy Lunch,” with its world-famous fried pork chop sandwiches. It was an incredible little town. What a panorama of Americana. The old houses. The leafy, shaded streets and neighborhoods. I couldn’t believe it.
Griffth tranferred a lot of his experiences growing up in Mt. Airy to the TV show that became famous and ran for years.

I have a book on the history of Mt. Airy that I bought in the town on that trip in 1996, and also a book full of photos and dialog from the shows, an excerpt of which is included at the beginning of this entry. I really enjoy looking through that book, which also contains recipes for food that Aunt Bee mentions on the show. Not that I am a cook or buy cookbooks, but it is fun seeing those mouth-watering recipes and thinking about that Southern cooking.

Aunt Bee, played by the actress Frances Bavier, was everybody’s wonderful aunt, — the doting, mothering, fussy, kind, and compassionate relative you remember from long-ago vacations and visits to loved ones. Her last years were spent in Siler City, N.C. where she died in 1990. I was editor of a weekly newspaper at the time, and remember reading the story in the news. I wrote this column for the newspaper as my tribute to Aunt Bee and the Andy Griffith Show:

Who could ever forget that voice — slightly high-pitched, but tender and caring, as she fussed over what Andy and Opie were wearing when it was cold, whether they’d had enough to eat or wanted another piece of pie. Aunt Bee, from the Audy Griffith Show, was everyone’s favorite aunt — amiable, lovable, an institution in the “fictional” small Southern town of Mayberry.

Aunt Bee, who in real life was Frances Bavier, died last December at 86. After leaving from the show as matriarch of the Taylor household, and being a part of our lives during those turbulent years from 1960-68, Bavier retired to Siler City, N.C. and lived there in relative obscurity. In her later years, although she was rather reclusive, she began to fall back into her Aunt Bee personna, even wearing her hair the same way it was on the show.

What scenes and memories she must have revisited over the years. Images of that wonderful cast of characters are engraved forever in television’s hall of fame: Sheriff Taylor and little Opie (Ron Howard), who later became a movie actor and director; the inimitable Barney Fife, played by Don Knotts; Floyd the barber; Gomer Pyle; Cousin Goober; Helen Crump and Thelma Lou, Andy and Barney’s girlfriends; Otis Campbell and Howard Sprague.

Mayberry was the kind of town in which we imagined good people lived ordinary lives and wise Sheriff Taylor, with the help of the ever-bumbling Barney, outwitted crooks and maintained order. The townspeople of Mayberry had never heard of crack cocaine. Otis, the town drunk, was not such a comical character in retrospect, but we laughed at his antics, particulary when outmaneuvering Barney, even in his inebriated condition. We never saw or heard about the kind of crime and disruption so common in society today. Of course it was a bit unreal, but it was just a TV show after all. In its time it filled a niche. The characters were a bit eccentric, the gossip was a trifle dull, and Floyd always seemed to know everything that was going on, often getting his stories pretty badly mixed up.

I hadn’t heard much about Aunt Bee over the years. She’s the kind of television character who has lived on in reruns, a perpetually 60ish, matronly woman with gray hair tied in a bun who is otherwise ageless in our eyes. Who could imagine Aunt Bee not bustling about in the kitchen or rushing out the door to have lunch with some of her friends.

Aunt Bee and Mayberry were symbols of another era that seemed to be more innocent and stable. We like to live comfortable illusions, however, and most of the time they serve us pretty well, except when some thing or person or horrible event upends our comfortable sense of security. When that happens we can turn on the TV and watch an episode of The Andy Griffith Show where Aunt Bee wipes away Opie’s tears and makes the world right again.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aunt_Bee

Last updated April 11, 2024