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April 27, 2005
Good neighbors
Medpundit remebers her recently-deceased grandmother and another era:
She belonged to the last generation for whom nursing others was just a part of a woman's life. When she had her babies, the neighbor women would come and help. And when they had theirs, she returned the favor. They would do the same with illnesses. Those were the days before antibiotics, before intravenous therapy, even before hospitals in our small town. The doctor would come to the house, give his instructions to the neighbor women, and go on to his next patient in some other neighborhood. They didn't have visiting nurse services in those days, they just had good neighbors.
Posted by Amy Welborn | Permalink
Comments
And they dealt with death on a daily basis. It was part of life. Dying was not a wonderful spirtual thing that only Popes can do well. My father died in our living room, gasping for breath, starved, cancerous. But he died with wife and children at his side, and he knew it. In the midst of death he told my mother, "I didn't know it was going to be this hard to die." It was another twelve hours.
Posted by: Fred McFarland at Apr 27, 2005 12:18:52 AM
The "olden days" were not exactly priswtine; it may have been illegal but euthanasia and infanticide were very common; VERY. My grandmother tells be stories about the "old country,' Sicily.
Suffering old people, at their own request, were often suffocated; others in similar conditions were "mercifully put out of their misery."
Infanticide was *VERY* prevalent, especially if a baby was born deformed. Such a baby was unmarrigiable, and so a burden to the family who could not afford to keep a mouth that could not be married-off or otherwise put to work. Ditto for teens who got pregnant out of wedlock, and whose sexual partners did not have the decency to marry. They were "used good" and unmarrigiable, and so had no prospects for having a husband to support her and her child. Children born out of wedlock were frowned or left to die in the woods, and the whole thing hushed up.
Oh, and prostitution was legal, and adultery expected and accepted on the part of the husband, so long as he didn't "bring it to the home."
Don't get me wrong; we live in a culture of death, but the "olden days" were not golden at all.
Posted by: Eric Giunta at Apr 27, 2005 12:38:43 AM
Eric I agree with you, we can't look at our past through rosy glasses but we have lost that 'community as family' aspect. Think of the neighborhoods barren of children and if someone dies, none of the neighbors know unless they read the obits (Irish sport pages) and happen to know their neighbors last name. These neighborhoods are kind of 'stepford neighborhoods' - big houses, one or two kids you never see, no one ever home. Sad.
I think the 'hospice' programs are wonderful and sometimes you still see heroism in terminal illnesses today when the dying loved one goes at home and the family and friends band together and act as one loving blanket during the entire time of sorrow.
Posted by: Colleen at Apr 27, 2005 7:46:23 AM
Life was no joke to people of their generation. I remember my grandfather's older sister, who never married. Aunt Emmy never had much of a chance. Her father- my great-grandfather, a German immigrant, was killed in a sweatshop accident. Leaving Aunt Emmy, Grandpop, Great-Grandmom, and three siblings by themselves. Long before The Safety Net. They all reacted differently. At age 12, Aunt Emmy went to work at a factory- clearly shaping her worldview of Life As Unlimited Grind. Another brother clashed early and often with her- wound up travelling all over the country, probably working in big city speakeasys in the Roaring 20s. Another brother, Henry, became a Redemptorist priest. Grandpop settled down and had seven kids- one was my father, another was my beloved missionary priest Uncle Henry. All of the above cheering the appointment of their Deutsch homeboy Benedict XVI from heaven. Condolences on the loss of the correspondent's grandmother. We Spoiled Baby Boomers and Beyond have no clue about their lives.
Posted by: Gerard E. at Apr 27, 2005 7:56:05 AM
It was assumed that these women had nothing else to do but nurse someone or other. No books, Amy! No blogs! You'd be too busy with your descendants and your ancestors!
The men, the brothers, sons, uncles, of the disabled were assumed (whether this made sense or not) to be too busy or too good to help out here. (Even if, especially if, they were hopeless never-do-wells who couldn't or wouldn't hold a job.) Thus, the disabled elderly relative was parked on the sister, not on the brother; or failing, that, on the sister-in-law.
And as for the male relatives helping out with money now and again? Surely you are jesting.
Posted by: Nancy at Apr 27, 2005 7:53:24 PM
