In the Good Olde Tymes

[margiebargie]

One of my great-great-grandmothers wrote down her experiences, which a family member published with a vanity press just so we would have them. She had more than ten children and I think 3 or 4 made it to adulthood. She lost three kids in one day to some childhood illness--I think measles, but I am not sure. She had very nice births, just pushed them out and washed them and moved on, but she wrote about several friends who died in childbirth.

One thing that really struck me was that there was no childcare and yet she had to work. Most of the time she could keep them with her, but sometimes it just was not possible. During the harvest, she had to work or the family would not eat. So she hung the baby from a tree near the fields and left the toddlers at home. I think one of these times was when the multiple children died in a day; she had to leave sick preschoolers at home or they would starve to death, but they died of unattended fever while she was gone.

I should get a copy of that book and send it to a few of our fundies. But of course these were evil Jews in Kazakhstan, so they were not under God's protection I guess. It was a really sad time and the fact that she could write it like no biggie shows how normal these tragedies were. My family was not poor, either. They were educated and generally middle class, definitely wealthier than a lot of the people around them. They ate every day and wore decent clothing and paid for the education of all of their children, which were all luxuries in their time and place.

Wow. That is fascinating. A family friend was a prisoner of war in WW2. He kept a journal during that time. What he survived is just incredible.

Anyhow, let's see...if I made it through the bronchitis at 3 weeks I would have died in child birth.

[lawfulevil]

I'd probably still be alive, but not for long, back then you "treated" depression with all kinds of sketchy opioid-filled things...

[Guest Anonymous]

I'd have died on Christmas day, a few days after my birth. As it was, I got emergency treatment and a panda from Santa on the children's ward.

[freejoytoo]

Two of my cousins were born very premature. It is likely that they would both have died and while one is now very healthy, and has been since his birth, my other cousin is severely disabled so even if he had survived his early birth he may have died from an epilepsy attack or something else.

[pixydust]

What I have learned form this thread: The reason people had eleventy children in the "Good Old Days" is because the majority would probably die from stuff that takes a Dr visit now!

[Constance Vigilance]

I would have died at birth without the emergency caesarian that followed a 30+ hour labour :shock:. My next sister was another emergency caesarian. Once you've had two they don't let you birth vaginally (or they didn't then) so next sibling was a caesarian too, and came out with a birth defect that would have lead to her dying of failure to thrive in the Good Old Days. Not one of us, and probably not my mother, would be alive. Never mind all the fractures, infections etc that could have cost any of us our lives as we grew up.

My grandfather lost 4 siblings to tuberculosis, some in childhood and some as teenagers. It's heartbreaking.

[crazyforkate]

I have a congenital heart defect and would probably have died within days back in the 1960's, let alone the real olden days.

[Sweetpea1]

I would have probably not made it past 7 or so -lots of infections as a kid. I'm very glad for antiobiotics.

[olafgypsy]

I guess I would have been one of the lucky few to survive. My most serious childhood illness was chicken pox, and I think most people survived that, even before modern medicine. Ditto for 3 of my 4 siblings. One sister, though, would probably have died from a high fever / infection that required her hospitalization just a few days after birth. And my life would not have been a very happy one, since I rely on drugs to control depression/anxiety.

That said, I'm not sure I would ever have been born: if I lived in Ye Good Ol' Tymes, my grandfather would have lived Before Ye Good Ol' Tymes, which means he would certainly have died of chronic kidney infections that almost killed him even in the 1930s. He was one of the first non-military patients to benefit from a new "miracle" drug: penicillin. It definitely saved his life, with little time to spare. I'm very happy that HE lived on the cusp of Ye Good Ol' Tymes and the Ebil Modern Dayz, so that he could survive to have my father, who survived to have me!

[Trynn]

Actually, scratch my last post. I never would have existed, because my mother would have died at birth. When she came out, grandma tells me that my mom was all black and purple, and she wasn't breathing. She never quite forgave the nurses for telling her "there's nothing wrong with your baby, it's fine!" While they where whisking my mother off to the NICU.

[Shoobydoo]

I had some kind of violent blood infection as an infant, so.... Less than a year.

[tropaka]

In the good olde tymes my Mom thought she was the only child after her brother died from measles and her mother had a still birth at the same time. Unfortunately I broke the news to her only a few years ago while researching our family.

[genericJname]

If my frequent infant ear infections didn't get me, I bet my tonsillar abscess would have done me in at 17. My son with one heart ventricle wouldn't have made it through his first week.