Great Aunt Bernadine and the Many Suitors

This one is less of a narrative story and more of a character study on one of the many crazy women in my family.

Great Aunt Bernadine was a firecracker of a woman.  Born of an Irish immigrant, she had both the fire-engine red hair and the surly temper to prove it.  Being raised at a time when Irish Catholics were regularly discriminated against in America caused her to be especially proud of her heritage rather than cowed by popular opinion.  Bernadine demonstrated this pride every single day with her exquisite wardrobe.  I never saw her without some hint or accent of green on her clothes on the rare occasion that it wasn't the dominant color of the entire ensemble.  Whether it was her emerald green silk pant suit or verdant patterned Muumuu, she always managed to coordinate the outfit with a green color that highlighted her beautiful fiery red hair.
As children we would often ask her, "Great Aunt Bernadine, why are all of your clothes green?  Is that your favorite color?"  She would smile wryly and reply, "Why no children, I love every color... as long as it's green." with that characteristic twinkle in her eye.
Me, my sister, and our cousins would often visit her on the weekends because she lived literally around the corner from our grandparent's house.  Having no children of her own, Bernadine didn't mind babysitting for our parents on frequent occasion.  She would hold court on her back porch, perched atop her wicker Queen Victoria chair while lamenting the indignancies of old age.  I remember sitting at her knee at the ripe old age of 5 as she described what a fine looking woman she was in her youth, "I used to have such a lovely pair of ripe cantaloupes here on my chest, and now there's nothing left but a pair of scrambled eggs."
Bernadine's boasts of youthful beauty were not exaggerated.  While it's true that she never married in her life, she had managed to become successfully engaged five different times to five different men.  Upon hearing this as children we would often look at her with incredulity. disbelieving that someone could become engaged so many times without actually getting married.  "It's absolutely true," she quipped, "and I have the engagement rings to prove it."
"But Great Aunt Bernadine," we'd reply, "didn't you give the rings back when you called off the marriage?"
"Hell no!" she responded quickly, "I EARNED those rings, so I kept every last one of them."
Her womanly charms were evidently not limited to her many would-be suitors.  There is an infamous four-poster bed which remains in our family to this day.  It is a sturdy antique mahogany frame built by our great-grandfather.  According to family legend, President Woodrow Wilson was passing through our town giving stump speeches to garner support for his League of Nations proposal.  A very young and charming Great Aunt Bernadine was in attendance at the rally and was so enthralled by his oration that she somehow managed to obtain a private audience with him.  They spoke at great length, well into the night until it was too late for him to check into a hotel.  Being the ever gracious hostess, she offered him her own bed so he could rest for the evening before continuing on his campaign.  To this day that bed is known as "The Bed that Woodrow Wilson Slept in."  I asked her once if she was in it when Woodrow Wilson slept in her bed. She merely winked and replied, "A woman shouldn't reveal all her charms."
I quickly learned after that to stop asking so many questions...