Ruby Tuesday: Kewpie Dolls, Inoculations & A Few Garden Snaps

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Ruby waving her wooden spoons about – since we were talking about baking!

I dropped into Ruby’s early this afternoon to chat about this and that. Her friend Shirley was there and Margie also came in for a cuppa.

The topics skipped over this and that – I shared my news of the photo challenge and how I had bought a creepy ‘anatomically correct’ doll.

Ruby started to smile and then told us a story that my doll reminded her of.

She was five years old and her mother had given both Ruby and her sister, Sylvie, a Kewpie Doll! Very exciting. Dolls and such toys were few and far between. They were little nude dolls and Ruby told us at that age she was just becoming aware of all the body bits she had, eyes, nose ears… and a couple of other holes.

By this time we are all choking into our coffees imagining what was coming next – apparently Kewpie was lacking some vital details, so she got a pin and went to work!!

Her mother was “Not Amused” when she made the discovery!! Ruby was chuckling so hard reminiscing at this point. She said “I thought I’d forgotten all the naughty things I did as a girl!!”

I suppose its no surprise that she made a career in nursing!!

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The Rhododendron showing some flowers super early!

We chatted a bit about inoculations (immunisation/vaccinations) as back in Ruby’s early days it was common to be nursing people with polio, TB & diphtheria. Vaccines for diphtheria became available in the early 30’s – Ruby started nursing in 1938.

Diphtheria for most of us is only something we read about in history books. To me it is the name of an illness that we don’t worry about anymore.  Ruby see’s it very differently. First there’s the cough, then the sore throat, then the choking. She said it was an extremely cruel disease and the relief was great when they were able to inoculate the children.

A while back she told me to go look for my ancestors in the old graveyard and see the 4 children buried in the family plot. The old graves are in poor condition but I did find a very sombre piece in the local paper dated October 1870 –

The residents of the little township of
Wynyard and it surroundings were very
much startled lately, by the report that a
dangerous and insidious epidemic called
diptheria had found its way to this place
Two boy aged respectively two years and
nine months and eight years, children of
Mr William Peart. were the first suffers
and only lived a week from the time they
were taken ill. Shortly after the death
of the boys, two girls belonging to the
same family died within a week of the
death of their brothers, leaving their
parents childless. They were all buried
in the churchyard at Wynyard. The age
of the eldest girl was 13, the age of the
youngest 6 years.
This was my family! I will get to the council some day and locate their plot.
Ruby went to nurse in Waratah (Small country town which was quite isolated) in 1947/48 and was horrified to find none of the local children had been immunised. Of course she sorted them out pretty quick smart.
The deaths in Australia began dropping off quite rapidly. 4,000 deaths reported in Australia between 1926 – 1935 dropped dramatically to 44 between 1956 and 1965.  A great relief to families and the doctors and nurses that had to try to save those affected.
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Look at those little winter tomatoes in Ruby’s hothouse!! She is enjoying this experiment!!
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Self seeded potatoes EVERYWHERE!! Who knows what we might dig up. We haven’t had heavy frosts to kill them yet
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Still getting a decent feed of her broccoli!

There were whole wards set aside for TB and Polio in Ruby’s early nursing days.

The kids with polio pretty much lived at the hospital… often from areas far away so were without family during their stay. The nurses, staff and other patients became surrogate families.

Polio often attacked the arms and legs but Ruby said getting it in the chest wasn’t unheard of – and sadly very poor prognosis.

Bathing time was extremely busy – bandaging and rebandaging. Lots of kids, usually under the age of 14 years to attend to.

Ruby told us of a gentleman named Mr Record used to organise a team of between 4 and 6 volunteers daily to help at this time of day. They were young people aged between about 16 and 20 and were invaluable to the nurses. Ruby said she never knew how they would have coped without them. The young patients loved the interaction with the young helpers and apparently a good time was had by all – well as good as you can have with polio!

Ruby doesn’t remember anything else about Mr Record, but now, here in this little blog, just a few more people have heard what a kind man with his team of volunteers did to make a real difference in peoples lives.

Thank-fully  cases of polio are rare to the point of non existent here in Australia.

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I love Ruby’s weather vane!!
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Small bits of colour in winter
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This tree is always a delight!

As we stepped out the back to say goodbye to Ruby we were greeted by this magnificent double rainbow over her yard!

What a treat! The colours were so strong that even Ruby could see and enjoy it!

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Fabulous!

I hope you have enjoyed a ramble down memory lane with Ruby!

I will add her Apple Crumble recipe tomorrow

Cheers!

 

Author: Lisa

A happy traveller through life! Right now living in NW Tasmania with a gorgeous Nurse-Husband, a fool of a Siamese Cat and several chickens. We love our fairly simple lifestyle of growing a lot of what we eat and enjoying the stunning surrounds of our little patch.

9 thoughts on “Ruby Tuesday: Kewpie Dolls, Inoculations & A Few Garden Snaps”

  1. I love your stories with Ruby. It’s like a glimpse into the past. I especially enjoy hearing about her nursing history. I work in the medical field and it is really interesting hearing how things were back then. What a fabulous treat she is!

    1. Thank-you for the feedback! It is quite amazing to hear the stories and how different things were done 80 odd years back! My husband is also a nurse and loves chatting to Ruby & vice versa… they have good old ‘nurse natters’ 🙂
      We might have a lot of updated modern equipment and procedures and gadgets now, but in another way, things were a lot less complicated back then!

  2. Thank you for sharing Ruby with us! What a blessing you are to each other! When I was a little girl (in the 1970s) and Mama was busy with the babies, I’d visit Granny Robinson a couple of farms over. She was in her 80s then and still chopped her own firewood for heat and cooked on an old wood fired stove. It was shiny and gorgeous! Even this nine year old was impressed with the old stove. Her lamps in the house were old gas lights that were changed over to electric. We always went to her house for Halloween, all decked out in our costumes. She made Carmel apples for us or she’d reach up in her China hutch and give us each a dime from the change she kept in a teacup.

    1. How wonderful to have such vivid memories of Granny Robinson! She sounded amazing! I could really ‘see’ her place in my head from your description! It would have been an adventure for a young kid.
      Fancy still chopping firewood at that age!! Its enough effort just stacking and moving it while I am in my 40’s!! lol (Plus I honestly think with my track record for chopping bits of myself with ordinary knives, leaving the axe alone is a smart idea!!)
      My best friend lives on a farm and cooks with a wood stove!! Its fabulous!
      Thank-you for sharing this story! I loved it!!

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