Comments on: Part 2. Christmas On The Moor

By: Chris Lavis

Chris Lavis — Sun, 25 Jul 2021 11:54:59 +0000

I have a photo relating to this but how do I submit it?

By: Constance Marie Pierce

Constance Marie Pierce — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 08:05:56 +0000

Gwladys is alive to us …

If only she might have known how very many hearts would open to her through a grandson’s story … perhaps, she knows now.

By: Carolyn Badcock - nee Hooper

Carolyn Badcock - nee Hooper — Wed, 31 Dec 2014 07:04:56 +0000

What a wonderful thing, gentle author, to come to this understanding of your grandmother’s endearing love. I suspect those letters would have sustained your father whenever he took them out.

To own the photo of Gwladys’ serene face must be a absolute treasure. She was beautiful.

By: Barbara

Barbara — Tue, 30 Dec 2014 11:25:52 +0000

The pain of having to give up ones child must be unbearable. How many women were forced to endure this pain we will never know . It must have been a great shock for you t0 discover those letters and how sad that you were not able to speak with your father about them . But, these twists and turns in life are what make us who we are and perhaps it is no coincidence that you do what you do so well with other peoples stories ??????
Love
Barbara

By: Riha

Riha — Tue, 30 Dec 2014 00:06:05 +0000

As to leaving the doors and windows open in the TB ward…

My step-great-grandmother (“Oma”) had pulmonary TB as a small child. She too was sent to a sanitarium at only five years old. This would have been around 1910. Her most vivid memories are of sleeping outside on the porch, even though there was snow on the ground! She and her fellow patients, however, were well insulated with warm quilts and fur blankets.

Why leave TB patients out in sub-zero weather?
Because it killed the germs.

In an age before vaccination was commonplace, about the only known way to kill TB germs was by removing them from an environment in which they could survive. TB germs like it warm and damp, and by placing a patient in an environment where the air they breathed was extremely cold and dry, the germs would freeze to death.

It must have worked. Oma lived to be 87 before she went home to the Lord.

By: Erica W.

Erica W. — Mon, 29 Dec 2014 22:59:51 +0000

My maternal grandmother (born in 1901) also had TB and spent time in a santorium here in the US. She also worked as a servant in the home of local well-to-do merchants (owners of a department store chain that was the fanciest local store). She had some of those “exposure to the elements” treatments, too.

My dad was a foster child (ward of the state) who never knew his birth parents and was born out of wedlock (in NYC) in the 1930s. He bounced from foster home to foster home. I’ve tried to find out more about his relatives but have hit a brick wall.

I’m reading your posts about your own roots with a great deal of interest and all the sympathy in the world.

By: Jane

Jane — Mon, 29 Dec 2014 21:13:57 +0000

I read your posts sitting in bed drinking my early morning tea, across the Channel, and feel connected to home. This account of your family history is very moving, thank you for writing about it.

By: Laurel

Laurel — Mon, 29 Dec 2014 16:42:06 +0000

You might enjoy reading Thomas Mann’s book “The Magic Mountain” which was from this era and was all about a tuberculosis sanitarium. They had to always be in the open air.

I hope you have good luck tracing more information about your birth grandmother. Geneaology is such fun. Go on familysearch.org or ancestry.com

By: Victoria

Victoria — Mon, 29 Dec 2014 15:32:39 +0000

Gwladys’ clearly had a gift for writing, both in her daily observations, which she recounts so vividly, and her ability to convey emotion through the written word. Perhaps your own talent for writing has come from her.

I know that exposure to cold air was regarded as a treatment for TB, and like some of your other readers, I too had relatives who were sent to recuperate in sanitariums. It sounds as if the treatment in her case was a fine balance given the weather and she went on to develop a chest infection. There’s a rather haunting story by the writer Marghanta Laski called the Victorian Chaise-Longhue that compares the prognosis of a diagnosis of TB during the 1950s to a century earlier; it’s story that has always stayed in my mind as I’ve been hampered by serious chest infections during my adult life. I’m so pleased that Gwladys was able to benefit from a more modern approach to treatment for TB and hope she went on to lead a happy life, in spite of being expected to relinquish her son.

Very much looking forward to reading the final instalment of the memoirs.
Victoria

By: Sarah Thompson

Sarah Thompson — Mon, 29 Dec 2014 12:35:51 +0000

Dear Gentle Author,
So many similarities to my father Frank’s story, even the connection to Bovey Tracey!
How sad that Peter couldn’t share this with you during his life time. Thank you for sharing his story with us all and Gwladys’ heart-wrenching letters.
Happy New year
Sarah