My Stories

Yesterday I experienced an embarrassing moment in the office. Thankfully I was alone. I was just minding my own business and doing a hotel survey for a recent trip. Upon completion I clicked back to my home page and I saw a small picture near the bottom of the page. The face was warm and familiar. While I moved my mouse to the picture I was trying to remember how I recognized this woman. Then…before I could click…it happened. In an instant I recognized the older woman to be Francis Reid, the Days of Our Lives matriarch Alice Horton. Tears quickly filled the corners of my eyes…for the only reason her picture would be at the bottom of the page was to announce her death. I was right.

Francis Reid had a very successful lifelong career on the stage and screen. But I only knew her as Alice. It’s silly, I know, that a twenty something year old guy was crying in his office at this news. But I’m not ashamed. You see, Alice Horton was more than the matriarch of a soap opera. Alice was my grandmother…on television. It was my grandmother who first introduced me to Days. I’m sure she didn’t give it a second thought to pull me up on her lap to watch her “stories.” As I got older I was the only kid on the block to leave the bike gang to ride home, everyday, to watch. (My grandmother also looks a bit like Bea Arthur…which might be why I enjoy the Golden Girls so much)

In high school I would tape the show. In college I worked out a schedule that allowed me to watch three days a week. I gradually got away from Days. However there were always certain episodes that I was certain to watch. Christmas, and the hanging of the Horton family ornaments being one of them. Other people don’t get it. Non-soap people simply don’t understand the importance of Alice to the soap opera institution. She was the solid one. She was the grandmother, loving wife, stable mother-in-law, and the one who nearly every character turned to at their lowest moment for advice.

I guess it is fitting that Francis Reid pass away while Days is in its final run. Day time television is changing. Soap operas no longer hold up against today’s line-up. They were strong in their time, but sadly it is time that daily soap opera become part of our television history. I’m still a little embarrassed that her passing is having such a weight on my emotions yet today. I guess I cannot truly express the incredible influence that she, and the show, still has on my life. I should expect anyone to understand…