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Monday, 10 February 2014
family history
There were six brothers and six sisters but the men of the family were no good, they drank and gambled and I think two of them went out to Assam to become tea planters. My grandmother, Mary, was the only one who got married, she was the oldest and then Jessie, Tettie and Annie and others whose names I have forgotten. What is Tettie short for? I don't know - Letitia? Margaret? They all lived together in a big old house in Lincoln except Jessie who didn't get on with Mary and so she went off to Hungary. There was a rich widower who courted Tettie, he even asked her to marry him but she wanted time to think about it and that was her chance quite gone and she spent the rest of her life on the sofa. When my father was born he was so small that they had to feed him with a pen dropper. My dear, he was so small that he could fit into a pint pot, the one on the mantlepiece in the blue bedroom. Of course, there were so many children but they none of them survived past eighteen months except my father, all dead with scarlet fever and what-not.
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The story of your father surviving reminds me of my uncle. He was born prematurely at home during WW2 weighing only 3 lb. He was wrapped in cotton wool to keep him warm and his little arms were the same circumference as my grandmother's wedding ring. Yet he too survived and grew up to be my larger than life uncle who became a London cabbie.
ReplyDeleteWhen our twins were born prematurely they fitted along my fore arm between the heel of my palm and the crook of my elbow. Grannie said no need for travel cot they will fit in a drawer for a while yet.
ReplyDeleteI love reading your family history.
This is how my dad describes me as a Child, I hit 5ft11 before I was 18 though!
DeleteSuch a vivid history, full of colour and life and death. It doesn't pay to delay when it comes to rich widowers.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it lovely to look back and summarise family history in this way - maybe Tettie was a derivation of Violet
ReplyDeleteI love this --
ReplyDeleteI like that you throw us some family history every now and then. My niece was born prematurely weighing 1,8KG but nowadays it's not a battle as it was back in those times. Back then it was all on the baby's teeny shoulders if it had a chance or not. No technology or machines to help. Just strength and fate, I guess.
ReplyDeleteMy father was also a very small baby - 3lbs when born in1912. He became a very tough little boy.
ReplyDeleteSuch an interesting family. Mine was very boring.
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