Genealogy Chat

The death of a child, even 100 or more years ago, takes me aback a bit and even often puts a lump in my supposedly tough old throat.

It has been suggested that mothers in earlier times grew immune to the loss of a child. I refute this entirely. How could any parent seeing a long anticipated (if perhaps not totally welcomed) new child sicken and die without some emotion. Life is not like that.

I have discovered while researching my Dutch side that my Grandmother and her several siblings bore 51 children betwen 1885 and 1915 and in that period no les than 21 of those children died within three years of birth. Several more passed away before the age of fifteen. What is significant is that my Grandmother brought her twelve stong brood up in Scotland and lost not one.

Therefore take away her twelve and you have 21 of 39 children lost in Rotterdam. One great uncle lost 9 of fourteen in a very short period. His wife died (probably of exhaustion and depression) and he immedately remarried and by 1930 had five more, all of whom survived.

I am studying the extraordinary rates of child mortality in West Holland at this time but it is not a popular subject hence the resources are small. Whatever, on my tree every time a small life ebbs away I add a tear and an R.I.P.