The following newspaper article was sent to me by my sister, sent to her by a cousin from our birthplace, Christchurch.
The first surprising thing I noticed was it mentioned our mother's family name and then specifically named our grandfather and grandmother (I've blocked these out in case anyone's privacy is violated).
As the youngest in the family, I didn't get to meet Grandad and Nana as they had died long before I was born. There were a few stories told of their life and fewer stories of Mum's childhood but between the five of us we have been piecing together some sort of family history. It's colourful to say the least. Not in the glamorous, high life way but in the blood, sweat and tears of their marriage kind of way. Well, read for yourself how classy my genes are ....
I cannot get over the fact that they felt the need to take a seemingly simple matter of how much should be spent on the household to court! And we reckon our courts are held up with piffle now!! I wonder what murder cases were delayed because my grandparents were arguing over the number of chops to be had for dinner! Though probably not many occurred in Christchurch in the early 1930's. It wasn't exactly Underbelly-Razor-city.
I explains ALOT about the relationship my Mum had with Dad, how she hounded him about money, or lack thereof. She was even known to search for money in his wallet while he "slumbered" as well! But the difference was they both had a gambling problem, but I think Mum was a little more secretive about it.
I do remember her rationing chops but not eating that much herself. Most nights she would dish up ours and Dad's dinner and just nibble until she was taken out to the club.
There was no "strong desire to run the household" on Dad's part and Mum did it reluctantly but efficiently. We mostly ate alright, well we did by the time I came along, my sisters and brother might have a different take on it.
What I do love about this diamond of a discovery (besides the great humour in the writing of the account - "Laughter" - not sure if this was Nana or the court laughing, though I know I did), is that it gave my family an inside view of what it was actually like to live in that home when our Mum was a little girl. Not many people kept accounts of their life and I'm sure even less had a court account of what was going on.
It got me to thinking, after trying to convince my sister that she should be writing down all the stories she's finding out and ones she remembers hearing when she was young, that all the Mum bloggers out there are actually putting down an actual account of what their family life is like as it's happening. Can you imagine your grandchildren coming across an old blog of their family in about 80 years? How valuable is that to them? Even better is discovering an old handwritten diary from a relative, so hopefully the art of journal writing will not die out.
Do you have a diary from an old relative? Did you discover any hidden skeletons?
It's I Blog On Tuesdays day (thanks for reminding me Gemma!). Who else is blogging today?
[Also don't forget you've got till Sunday to enter my Panasonic competition, so visit here soon!]
