Today’s letter reminded me of when I was pregnant with my children. Hearing bits about my grandmother’s pregnancy experiences is rather fascinating. It was certainly something that we never talked about when she was alive. My grandmother did meet my future husband about six months before we were married but talk of babies was still in the very distant future. She eventually died a few years later before I had my firstborn. In the last years of her life, she suffered from Alzheimer’s disease or some other form of dementia. I don’t think she was officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s but it was certainly suspected. I doubt she even knew who I was the last time we met.
When she was pregnant with my father, Gladys was 36, going on 37. My father was born about 6 weeks before the 37th birthday. I was a couple years older than that when I gave birth to my youngest. Thirty six was fairly old in those days for having children, but not unheard of, especially with women who had larger families. My father-in-law who is slightly younger than my father was born when his mother was 42. I did not enjoy being pregnant, either time, but I think the second time was harder due in part to my age. Both my children were very active in vitro which made me very uncomfortable most of the time. My youngest also liked to sit on a nerve that affected my left leg. I also remember waking up in the night with leg cramps. Boy, I don’t miss those.
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- July 8, 1942 Envelope
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- July 8, 1942, p. 1
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- July 8, 1942, p. 2
Letter transcription:
Wed.
Dear Mother,
Just read your two letters and also Ed’s. His was rather it interesting but not much about himself except that about the Yoll stove. I don’t know what happened to him at Chicago. I wanted him to go to the Arnett Crocket Clinic in the first place.
Yes it may or may not have been wrong to sign up for that flight school but there was a fellow transferred from here the other day who had been here about 10-11 months + too Dr. Rude the one that was coming here-was married and had a child 5 yrs. old and he was sent to sea. So there you are. You can’t figure anything out in the navy. In the first place why was I sent down here-
If I were you-instead of taking too much laxative I’d use small enema at least for the time being. I forgot to say anything about the leg cramps. That will happen in spite of everything, but you should take some vitamins. Say one unicap each day. Of course Dr. C[ole] may prescribe something different but you can’t beat those and they don’t have any taste to upset you.
No one has gotten any orders now
(page 2) for ten days. So maybe I did make a mistake by trying to get out of here.
I told Mr. Ferneau about the letter Dorothy sent. He just laughed, guess I told you that before but its so long before the letters get back that I forget what I have and have not written.
Seems as if that was all the new-all we did today was examine + shoot. Had 2084 men to shoot today. So the day wasn’t wasted I guess
Love Daddy
Genealogy Lady 
Love the “shooting”. Also, one of the best purchases Ive ever made was my copy of Blogging for Dummies. Thats how I ended up choosing wordpress, and, its still on my desk next to the computer. I look stuff up all the time.
I am so glad I went with Word Press. I just didn’t like the feel of Blogger and I’m not a Google fan. I also don’t like interacting with their blogs either. I have a hard time commenting from my iPad which is where I read most of my blogs. If I want to comment, I have to move to my desktop and then many of them have the security words (to prove you aren’t a robot). It is not an easy experience. Perhaps I will check out The Blogging for Dummies from the library. 🙂
Yes, “shooting” all those men was for inoculations. Last year, I transcribed my father-in-law’s WWII letters from the Navy, where he served as a hospital corpsman. I was a little alarmed the first time I read it put that way, too. But from following context (on a ship about to land at a south Pacific island with disease risks) that was the only thing it could have meant. Interesting to see how others put things in different time periods–especially the things we take for granted as “always been that way.”
Today’s letter wasn’t the first time my grandfather refered to “shooting”. When I read it the first time, it was the only thing that would work in the context of his job. 🙂 It definitely makes one laugh to think of the contrast between what we hear and what he means.
2,000+ vaccinations… Wow. True assembly line. Back in the very early sixties, I remember the nurse administering some kind of shot ran the needle tip through a Bunsen burner flame to sanitize it. I wonder how your grandfather administered hundreds of shots in a day! And by the way, I am glad I am (ahem) male and never will endure birthing pain………….
I hadn’t even thought of that…how did they sterilize all those needles? Oy….He can’t possibly have done 2,000+ in a day by himself so he must have been refering to the team of doctors/nurses doing that many collectively.
I am glad that I don’t have to endure the joys (cough) of pregnancy again. 🙂
When he says “2084 men to shoot,” is he talking about inoculations?
It seems like a lot of their conversations are about his patients back home. And now, of course, your grandma’s own pregnancy.
Am I remembering correctly that your grandpa was an Obstetrician?
1) Yes, I believe he is talking about inoculations since I don’t think he is actually talking about shooting people 🙂
2) I think this early on (he’s only been away 6 weeks) there are a lot of conversations about the patients. I think that there is a lot of wrapping things up from his case load and trying to remember who had what medicine in order to let the new physician know what was going on.
3) My grandfather was a general practitioner in a small rural community. He pretty much did everything. I don’t think he was a surgeon. In his later years once they moved away from Kentland, he was a doctor at one of the teaching hospitals in Lafayette. I believe he had an exam room/office in the house for many years. I do know he delivered a lot of babies. I think I read a newspaper article about a set of twins he delivered having their own babies delivered by him as well. I also remember that he told the story about how lots of people wanted to name their babies after him, and he would refuse to tell them what the R. in Dr. R.S. Yegerlehner stood for. He disliked his own name so very much.
So what DID the R stand for? (Don’t worry, I won’t name a baby after him LOL)
Oh, and by the way – Did you see that I finally did a new genealogy blog last night? Photos & links & all! Took me several hours – but at least I’m back in the saddle again.
R was for Roscoe.
What/where is the new genealogy blog? I will definitely check it out.
Here it is:
I found it! Sorry I got confused, I thought you created a whole new blog, not a single post. I also started another blog this weekend. And I’ve been fighting to figure out how to get my domain name officially transfered to Word Press. The tech gods don’t make it easy…
Oh! I don’t know how to do that at all. I mean, I do know how to start a new blog. But I don’t know how to move a domain name. Good luck! And make sure you tell ME where your new blog is. 🙂
My new blog is: http://www.brokenthreadz.com
I have many aspects to my personality &life. I’m a wife, mother, genealogist, seamstress & an elementary school English Language teacher. All of which are part time jobs and/or passions which overlap continuously. I am liking having my genealogy blog at Word press so I canceled my website for my sewing business and just started a blog for it. It seemed like an economically feasible move, but this morning’s fustrations might have me rethinking that position. There are lots of directions on Word press on how to transfer your domain to another host, but not so much on explaining the transfering in. Hopefully, the “happiness engineers” will get back to me.
I sure hope they do get back to you!!! Broken Threads sounds like a good name for a genealogy blog LOL. But it works for sewing, too, I’m sure. 🙂
I hadn’t thought of that before, but you are right!
🙂 See ya later! Can’t blog tonight, or read and respond any more right now. Big 3-hour meeting to attend. Talk to you later! ((Hugs)) Rani