Mind-boggling story of my great-granny

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I've been looking into my family tree a little bit, and my great granny. My gran (her daughter) is still alive, sharp as a tack and a wonderful character. I saw her Monday evening with my findings.... welll.....

I think I knew great granny had been married twice but that was about it. She'd actually got married at 15 (!) And was married for 9 years before first husband died. 14 months later she married my great grandad. She had no children from her first marriage, and 5 from second (Inc my gran her only girl).

So, I bring this up with gran and she says, all nonchalant 😆 'well she didn't know how' . Apparently she was very 'proper' (higher working class, devoutly religious Victorian family) and never consummated her marriage because she had no idea what sex was. Neither did husband 1 by the sounds of it. She desperately loved and wanted children and didn't know why she wasn't getting pregnant and far too embarrassed to ask anyone.

Husband 1 shuffled off his mortal coil, then I'm guessing she had quite a startling wedding night with husband 2.

My gran knows this as just before her marriage great granny sat her down to have what sounds like a very painful conversation about how babies are made 😆

I just can't stop thinking about the poor woman now. 9 years! What did they do? Had DH1 not tragically died young would she have been a virgin all her life? Would someone (a doctor?) At some point explained sex to her? It's very mind-boggling

My mother was a product of a very repressed Catholic upbringing, and she carried that forward into her life as a mother. I got a very brief description of periods, a quite frankly baffling description of sex and one packet of sanitary pads. When they ran out, I kept asking her to buy more, and she kept ‘forgetting’. I had to resort to wads of loo roll shoved into my knickers. (I had no money of my own, no pocket money or Sunday job, I was only 11). I know that she went to great lengths to get a medicated cream imported from Germany regularly for my brother (this was many years before online ordering was a thing!) so the only conclusion I can draw is that her not buying me necessary pads was an expression of internalised misogyny, I just had to make do, whereas the male got heaven and earth moved for him.

‘Blue balls’ was something I frequently heard bandied about 🤬.
Benny Hill and his peers still make me feel sick years after they died.

I remember being sent to the local chemist with a note from mom, this would have been late 50s maybe very early 60s. I realised when I was a bit older the note was asking for a packet of sanitary towels. They were produced from under the counter wrapped in brown paper so I didn't know what they were at the time. Shameful things wrapped in brown paper, contrast with now with quite graphic adverts
My mum used to send me along to the corner shop like this. She called them ‘doofers’.

Regarding my own childhood, my mom was 36 when I was born, and my father 49. Mom gave me a book when I was 11 on it. It made no sense and taught me nothing.

My mom spotted I had come on cos of a blood stain in my knickers. I didn't know what it was cos I was told nothing.

She took me to one side and gave me the belt and sanitary towels. She bought me more each month, though, and I never discussed it with me.

I guess I found out "properly" what was happening through school chatter, and putting it all together, hirls magazines, and I remember it being discussed in biology at school.

https://www.wordonthestreets.net/Articles/524769/Why_Rev_Chad.aspx

This reminds me of a woman who was in the old people's home my mother was matron of in the 80's. The home had once been the workhouse, and the woman was admitted when she was young, unmarried and pregnant. I know she had a son, but I don't know how I know, and I can't remember what happened to him.

She spent the rest of her life in that place :(. I like to think her later years, when my mother' was there, were happier but who knows. Her whole life in an institution for being pregnant and not married :(.

I hadn't read this when I posted about the woman in the old people's home my mother was matron of. She too was deaf dumb - I wonder if we're talking about the same person? Did her name begin with M?

Not knowing about periods is a plot point in The Thorn Birds too. The creepy paedo priest tells Meggie what is going on.

Until 1971 you could sue for "breach of promise" if you were engaged and the marriage did not go ahead. https://www.quillsandquartos.com/post/breach-of-promise-to-marry hence the slightly more relaxed attitude to sex once people were engaged.

I was born in the early 60s. My mother did tell me about periods, but the way she told it I thought it would happen once. So I was shocked when it happened again!

My mum was very open about periods. She had been very uninformed growing up. She thought you got one a year and that my Gran would be angry when she told her. My gran just gave her money and said ‘here, go to the chemist and get a belt and some towels’. I remember when I started my period about 1992 my mum bought these awful cheap towels that were like mattresses. She refused to buy decent ones. When I had my own money and could buy Always and other thin pads with wings it was a revelation. I have never been very good with tampons and my mum did say ‘they break your virginity!’

Some people are very clueless about pregnancy etc, my mums colleague claimed me and my sibling must be adopted. My mum had an umbilical hernia when she was young and had no belly button (my dad said she was factory made. He was also after a discount saying there were parts missing due to several operations). Her colleague said ‘babies link onto your bellybutton from the inside’. Apparently can’t have children without a bellybutton… to be fair this woman seemed to be very dense.

There is a theory that the 1960s serial killer Bible John targeted women on their periods because he could feel the sanitary belt on them while dancing.

Oh my mum insisted that the bulky "sitting on a log" pads were enough (thank you to whichever pp posted that, made me laugh and so true!). She used tampons but we had to have the cheapest pads going. But then she was as tight as a ducks arse about practically everything unless it was something that mattered to her personally. Thinking back though, I had horrendous periods from when I first started and would often leak. She would play hell about it, but refused to get better pads as they were waste of money. As someone who suffered her whole life with gynae issues you would think that that would be one area that she would be sympathetic about and agree to spend a bit more money, especially as she had premium products for herself. Comparitive to income, Tampax were more expensive then than they are now.

Never heard of that, was this in the UK?

Bible John?

Ah, cross posted with the edit!

Yes in Glasgow, edited to include the name!

Ah thanks, will look that up.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g I am currently re-reading Moving Pictures!

My great grandmother had more than one "husband" and her children had different fathers. We found a army card where she was referred to as the man's "unmarried wife" - which I guess was recognition of her status as his live in partner. Presumably she wouldn't have got a war widow's pension had he been killed.

Mum, born 1916, had an older sister, X, and when Mum's periods started she told her mother that she had what X had. The reply was, "You know what to do, then." No bother about provision of sanitary protection, though, just very few words. Obviously Mum made sure I knew more.
I got to my teens in the 1960s and at school we gradually moved from towels to tampons - well, my crowd did. It was a bit of a rite of passage to go to school and announce that you'd managed to get one in, not without difficult trials.😃

I had my first period in 1976 age 13.
My mum bought me Kotex New Freedom which we special knickers with a plastic sort of buckle which gripped onto a sanitary pad (at the front only) instead of a belt. For some strange reason the knickers were white and nylon as it was the 1970s.

Oh definitely not! There is no suggestion it was consensual. We have no idea and no way to find out.

@Scarletrunner I've never heard of infantile decay, do you know what it is please? Does it mean babies just wasted away and died of unknown causes? I know there was high infant mortality in past centuries.

I am guessing that they waste away but hadn't heard of it before either.

Failure to thrive In guessing. Not enough nutrition, poor air quality, bad hygiene practices. Most probably a malnourished mother. So sad.