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-   -   So sad (http://genealogistsforum.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=28046)

Nell 06-09-19 23:11

So sad
 
Getting back into the swing of family history now I am retired. I've just noticed the sad sequence of events in my gt x 2 grandfather John Purvey's life.

Between 1886 and 1889 (3 years) he lost his brother, his mother, 4 sons and a daughter. A daughter died before this and another daughter afterwards. All the deaths occurred singly, but what a ghastly period it must have been.

Janet 07-09-19 01:34

It's hard to fathom that from where we sit today. I hope you'll come across some more uplifting revelations too, now that you have time to look. Congratulations on your retirement, Nell.

Olde Crone 07-09-19 09:07

Yes, family history can bring tears.

My 6 x ggm had 19 children. The first six died in the space of 23 days of smallpox. Somehow she pulled herself together and went on to have 13 more children, ten of whom died in childhood, one married but had no children, one disappeared from the records and one is my 5th ggf. She outlived them all including her husband and died aged 84. I cannot imagine what her life was like.

OC

Phoenix 07-09-19 10:22

I remember reading: The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500-1800 by Lawrence Stone and disagreeing violently with his views.

He argued that since life was so uncertain, it really didn't matter who you married, since death would break those ties quickly enough, and that mothers invested no emotional capital in their children, since they were not likely to survive.

There would, of course, be some people for whom that might be true.

Lawrence Stone was born just after the first world war, so would have heard of unfortunate marriages amongst his parents' generation, and seen similar liaisons within his own. But I cannot imagine anyone who was able to make an informed choice not caring that their marriage would be desparately unhappy because they might be dead anyway in a few years, when it's the whole of the rest of their lives.

Olde Crone 07-09-19 10:28

I think that mothers were probably counselled to make no emotional.investment in their children but not sure how you enforce that! You have to be hard indeed to resist the charms of your own baby.

OC

ElizabethHerts 07-09-19 10:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phoenix (Post 363059)
I remember reading: The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500-1800 by Lawrence Stone and disagreeing violently with his views.

He argued that since life was so uncertain, it really didn't matter who you married, since death would break those ties quickly enough, and that mothers invested no emotional capital in their children, since they were not likely to survive.

There would, of course, be some people for whom that might be true.

Lawrence Stone was born just after the first world war, so would have heard of unfortunate marriages amongst his parents' generation, and seen similar liaisons within his own. But I cannot imagine anyone who was able to make an informed choice not caring that their marriage would be desparately unhappy because they might be dead anyway in a few years, when it's the whole of the rest of their lives.

I can't imagine many women/mothers writing that!

Nell 08-09-19 10:11

Child mortality was much higher years ago but I don't for one second believe that most children weren't loved and mourned deeply. Testimony about the first two Bronte girls who died young (Mr Bronte outlived his wife and all 6 of his children) and of one of the Carr family (Quaker biscuit manufacturers) nursing her young son as he was dying of diphtheria are more usual.

Mind you I am often struck at how many of my forebears had a child that died and then had 2 or 3 more all with the same name who also perished. I'd be tempted to change the name in the hope of changing their fortune!

Merry 08-09-19 15:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nell (Post 363125)
Mind you I am often struck at how many of my forebears had a child that died and then had 2 or 3 more all with the same name who also perished. I'd be tempted to change the name in the hope of changing their fortune!

Ooh, I agree. One of my families had around 12 children. All those not called Thomas survived to old age, but the four called Thomas all died as babies or toddlers. As soon as a Thomas died the next son got that name every time. I don't know why they needed a Thomas - no one else in the immediate family had this name. Like you, I think I wouldn't have wanted to re-use the name, especially after two Thomas's had passed away never mind three.

Olde Crone 08-09-19 15:54

Yes, no less than four Samuel Greens, one after the other. It gave me the creeps.

OC

Lindsay 09-09-19 21:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nell (Post 363125)
Child mortality was much higher years ago but I don't for one second believe that most children weren't loved and mourned deeply.

Absolutely, Nell. A contact of mine sent me copies of some old family letters from the early 1800s. One was from a mother who had just lost the child she had been nursing, and her grief is every bit as overwhelming as you would expect.


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