Just when you thought you knew everything! .....

[joette]

I was pursuing my Paternal Great-Grandfather's brother & his family.
Wife died young leaving four children & I couldn't find where the 2nd daughter was no death,no marriage & not with Dad & Stepmum & other sibs.Found her with another Brother of my GGrandfather.So she probably went to USA with him-he was at least late fifties,emigrated,married someone 25 years his junior & had children for the first time.
Thought I will have a wee look at what my Granny was doing she would be 6.Couldn't find the family not many McKimmies living in Old Kilpatrick in fact they're the only ones.Found them misindexed as McKemmie but where is Rosanna? No sign of her.Maybe she is in Crieff visiting Granny & Grandpa-no joy.
Looked under Ro*** McK***m** & there she was in Dumbarton Fever Hospital.Now I have never heard tell of a stay in Hospital-all the nursing was done at home by her very competent parents.
I presume she must have had a communicable disease eg Diptheria,Scarlet Fever but she never ever mentioned it.I thought I knew all about her life & here from the Census is a snippet about her early life.
She talked about the Fever Van coming to the Village & the parents threatening miscreant children with it but she must have been away in it herself.Poor wee Granny only 6 without her Mum or Dad & sick.
Maybe she didn't remember it herself?
Just shows you that there are still some surprises out there.Now if only I could find>....

[emanday]

I remember my Gran talking about the Fever Hospitals. I know two of an ancestors children died within a week of each other of Scarlet Fever, but they had managed to avoid getting taken away! Apparently, parents resisted this vehemently, as the general concensus was that you'd never see them alive again! Can't help wondering what the outcome might have been though if they had gone.

[Ina]

I remember as a child the scarlet fever van coming to pick up some neighbour children. I remember they wrapped them in a red blanket for some reason. It's amazing the things we remember from childhood.

Ina

[LesleyB]

That brings back memories of something an old plumber told me many years ago about a big house which is now a hotel not far from where I live. He said that at one time it was used as, I think he said a diptheria hospital, for children. He remembered going past the building and seeing children at the windows, with their hands on the window panes. Somehow this rather disturbing image got all tied up in my head with the very scary film which was made of the Henry James novel "The Turn of the Screw" ...and it used to give me the shivers just passing the building.

Best wishes
Lesley

[Russell]

Hello Ina

The red blanket was a standard colour that all the ambulances used. I think it stemmed from the military who usd grey blankets. A red blanket stood out as a mercy mission. The blankets folks had at home were dull colours too usually so bright red blankets would not be misappropriated nor get mixed up with hospital blankets.

We used to do an inventory every six months or so and every sheet, pillowcase, dressing gown and rubber mackintosh had to be laid out with the hospital stamp showing so it could be counted.

My father drove a rickety old coal company ambulance and even it had a red blanket and rigid stretcher.

Russell

[emanday]

Things were so different then.

My grandmother died of TB. She was taken away to a sanatorium in Airdrie when my Dad was only 3 years old (they lived in Rutherglen) and he never saw her again, even though she was there for a while before she died.

Dad could only ever remember her being a very small woman but, as his Dad was over 6 foot tall, she probably only seemed little to his child's mind.

[AnnieMack]

My dad went to a place in Colintraive during the war and he is unsure why. I have got a very brief excerpt from a book that says it was used for convalescence so he must have been ill.

He remembers looking out of the windows at night to see the ships in the loch, he was about 4 or 5 which would make it 1941 or 42. I don't think my granny managed to visit him as he had too many younger siblings and my grandad was in the glass house for refusing to do his bit in the war after he was conscripted!

The place is called Caol Ruadh and was a kind of outward bound place for Glasgow Council more recently - has anyone any knowledge of this place?

Annie

[emanday]

It's in Argyll and I think I used to drive past it going from Oban to Glasgow, but I could be wrong as the building I am thinking of was near the road and not old. There could, of course, be an older building further back.

[JimM]

The place is called Caol Ruadh and was a kind of outward bound place for Glasgow Council more recently - has anyone any knowledge of this place?

Annie

I remember Caol Ruadh.....
It was used as a residential school to give under-privileged city kids a summer holiday in the country..... I was sent there in 1967
Some good memories... cocoa and biscuits for supper at bedtime
Some bad memories... having to finish meals even if you hated the food (I used to smuggle liver and fish out down my socks to flush down the toilet).

I was only recently looking at the postcards I sent home "please send some money"

Jim

[mallog]

About WW1 my Dad was sent to Campbelltown to relatives because he seemed to be looking poorly. Later he lied about his age and joined the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders. I think his father went and got him out and eventually he joined the HLI. I remember him telling me he got a letter from his mother concerned to know why, when she was cleaning out his chest of drawers, she found rouge. This was seemingly why he was looking better. That I would like to have seen !

Mallog