This is the story that my grandmother Alma told me about when all four of her children got whooping cough.
She was born in 1913, in Sydney, Australia.
Grandma grew up in a working class family with seven children. They worked hard, grew lots of vegetables, kept chickens, and made their own clothes- and excellent clothes they were too.
Grandma got a job as a skilled seamstress at 14. She met my Grandad and they married in around 1934. Four children followed- in 1935 and 1936, and then in 1939 and 1941.
Of course in these years World War Two broke out, and eventually Grandad became a soldier in the Australian Army.
They lived on the (then) outskirts of Sydney, in a suburb near the George’s River.
There were neighbours, though none were close by, but Grandma managed without her husband.
Then her children got sick.
At first she thought it was just a cold- nothing much to worry about. But they got sicker – and the dreaded cough began.
A woman alone with four sick children- aged around two, three, six and seven, all coughing violently… The little ones sometimes seemed like they’d never start breathing again. None of them could really eat.
There was no phone.
I remember vividly her telling me that she boiled kettles to make the air more humid, and how she didn’t dare to go to bed in case she was needed, and how she sat in the hard, uncomfortable kitchen chair for many nights, trying not to sleep, trying to comfort and nurse her miserable children.
She lived until she was 104, and I was lucky enough to be able to take my children (born in the early 2000s) to see her often. We talked about Wakefield, and how some people were refusing to get their children vaccinated.
She was absolutely dumbfounded! ‘If only they knew how frightening these diseases were. Every mother knew another mother who’d lost a child. I’m so glad that your children won’t get these terrible diseases’.
She was born in 1913, in Sydney, Australia.
Grandma grew up in a working class family with seven children. They worked hard, grew lots of vegetables, kept chickens, and made their own clothes- and excellent clothes they were too.
Grandma got a job as a skilled seamstress at 14. She met my Grandad and they married in around 1934. Four children followed- in 1935 and 1936, and then in 1939 and 1941.
Of course in these years World War Two broke out, and eventually Grandad became a soldier in the Australian Army.
They lived on the (then) outskirts of Sydney, in a suburb near the George’s River.
There were neighbours, though none were close by, but Grandma managed without her husband.
Then her children got sick.
At first she thought it was just a cold- nothing much to worry about. But they got sicker – and the dreaded cough began.
A woman alone with four sick children- aged around two, three, six and seven, all coughing violently… The little ones sometimes seemed like they’d never start breathing again. None of them could really eat.
There was no phone.
I remember vividly her telling me that she boiled kettles to make the air more humid, and how she didn’t dare to go to bed in case she was needed, and how she sat in the hard, uncomfortable kitchen chair for many nights, trying not to sleep, trying to comfort and nurse her miserable children.
She lived until she was 104, and I was lucky enough to be able to take my children (born in the early 2000s) to see her often. We talked about Wakefield, and how some people were refusing to get their children vaccinated.
She was absolutely dumbfounded! ‘If only they knew how frightening these diseases were. Every mother knew another mother who’d lost a child. I’m so glad that your children won’t get these terrible diseases’.