The death of a baby in a working class family in the early 1900s

My mother always said that my baby sister Dorothy May was the most loveable of her children. I don’t think my mother meant to be unkind to the rest of us: me, my older brother Jim and my younger brother Ted. It was just that we never seemed to want to cuddle or be cuddled, whereas Dorothy did. She was my first memory. I must have been about three years old. I was told by my mother to sit and hold the baby and not to move. This I did, because we children never dared to disobey my mother. Then the baby wetted her nappy and as there were not such things as rubber pants, I also had a wetting, but I did not dare say so.

I was too young to remember anything else about Dorothy until she died of pneumonia. She was 18 months old. Her cot was in my mother's bedroom and there was a canopy over it. There was also steam kettle which looked like an ordinary kettle with a long spout. Although I did not at the time know its function, I now know it was to moisten the air to help a patient breathe. What also struck me about the bedroom was the smell of the linseed poultice, which was a sort of gruel mixture, made very hot, then put between two layers of flannel, and placed onto patients' chests. To me, it wasn't an unpleasant smell and I can always recall it when my mind goes back into the past.

My brother Ted was also very ill at the time. I can't recall any faces, only the bedroom and the doctor saying, "You’ll lose that one, but that one may pull through".

I recall that an aunt who lived in our road was in the bedroom with my mother and the parson. The parson did something with water and I imagine that Dorothy was being baptised. I have a hazy picture of a small white coffin and neighbours sitting in silence in our kitchen. I also have a vague picture of a neighbour from next door being in our kitchen, and I should think this was the day at the funeral, as it was common practice for someone else to be asked to look after the tea-making when the mourners came back to the house afterwards.

I suppose that the deaths of children was something that our parents lived with because it was so common, but it must have been very difficult for them. Much later my mother briefly gave way to her emotions and told me, "I can’t bear to think of her [baby Dorothy] lying in that cold churchyard all alone".  My mother kept a pair of white dolls shoes in her chest of drawers in memory of Dorothy. I understand that they had been taken off the doll that was buried with Dorothy, but my mother never spoke of them.

   

This website Join me in the 1900s is also known as Join me in the 1900's and is © Pat Cryer.