A Short Short Story . . . start

You might expect there would be more than one woman in the town named Edna. Edna should be as common as Della and LuDean, names that sound right here because they are here. The place has its share of Dales and Delmers, too, and a LeeRoy. Solid names, down to earth, as you might expect in a place called Farm City, which could be an oxymoron. But about Edna--it's Edna Willets, actually. She's a good looking woman, dark brown eyes and blond hair, a striking combination, and the blond hair is real, as ErmaDean--who is Edna's hair person and sounds like she might be related to LuDean but is not--will tell you if you ask, and apparently many do because of Edna's notoriety.

And notoriety she does have. But being the only Edna and a brown-eyed blonde are not Edna's only claims to fame, not the only reason women are naming their baby daughters after her. It's what she did.

No, she didn't drive the hay baler, like Dale Jones's wife, Della, or run her husband's dairy farm, like LuDean Hunsaker, Delmer's wife. She didn't take over the crop duster business and learn to fly those bi-planes either, like Florence Croft did after her husband LeeRoy crashed nose down and died. But Edna's fame did depend on a man, sort of, because it surely began when she married Ronald. Ronald Arvel Willets was his full name, which allowed friends to call him Raw, which he always was anyway, before they married and, unfortunately, after.