Chapter 6 Starting A Family

                                                        Chapter 6   Starting A Family

Six months after their return to Brisbane, in the year before the Second World War broke out, Peggy got her wish for a baby. Clarence, always known as Larry, was born In the Ellerdene Private hospital, Brisbane.

 “His head was covered in fine black curls,” Peggy repeated often as I grew up. “We were in hospital for two weeks in those days. And we were made to do our exercises, but we didn’t get out of bed for a week.  (I know her memories of that first confinement off by heart.)

 Of course, Peggy’s sisters and brother were married before her. Alice married Frank, although not before going through something of a tragedy herself. Alice fell in love with a young man who, again, did not meet George's approval. She was only nineteen, and far too young for marriage, according to George. The young man, however, was deeply in love with Alice and vowed to make a success of his life and return for her. He set off for north Queensland to work in the cane fields, where, tragically, he died. Peggy always said it was Weil’s disease. The medical dictionary explains Weils as: ’severe leptospirosis with fever and jaundice.’

Unfortunately, Alice was pregnant when he left, and when George found out, he kicked her out of the house. Eventually she gave birth and called her son Adam. To support herself, she found work as a housekeeper, putting her baby boy with a child-minder. Sadly, the woman neglected him, and Alice put her precious baby into an orphanage. He was eight months old. When Annie and George realized the baby was in an orphanage, they came to an agreement with Alice that they would raise Adam, but George insisted on the condition that they adopt him formally. Alice decided she had no choice.

 “When Mum picked Adam up from the orphanage, his hair was full of lice,” Peggy said. “I was nine years old by then. I loved Adam; we were always very close.” My mother always spoke of Adam with sadness.

Adam loved his grandmother very much, but he always referred to George as the old man. Alice often came to see her son, sometimes standing at the bottom of the stairs, too afraid to face her father, but Adam always knew and loved his real mother.

Peggy’s brother,Bill, married Florrie, and they had a little daughter. Lulu and Donald had a son and for a time were happy.

Ruby, the most talented of all the girls, had married a sweet-natured young man called Howard. But Howard was an alcoholic, supposedly on the bandwagon, and he and Ruby smoked heavily. One night after a party, persuaded by his mates, Howard again took to alcohol. This time, Ruby accompanied him in his drinking. She worked as a secretary for a specialist doctor on Brisbane's Wickham Terrace, where the city’s top specialists practised, so there was always plenty of money for alcohol and cigarettes.

Peggy often spoke sadly of her youngest sister, “Poor Ruby--she gave up her wonderful singing and organ playing. She used to lead the church choir, too, and there was a recording made once...I wonder what happened to that?”

Sadly, the decadent lifestyle of alcohol, cigarettes, and poor diet took its toll on Ruby. She passed away at the age of only twenty-seven, officially from malnutrition. Peggy was heartbroken. She could never speak of Ruby without shedding a tear.