Dad's Great Grandparents

I got some very interesting photos from Auntie Alizon which I am very excited about....


Meet Dad's great grandparents on the Evans side...

Unfortunately we don't know what their first names were...


The very fine and upstanding gentleman was very high up in the Salvation Army- hence the medals and pins...

He is holding a newspaper with the headline "War" which was probably the Boer War of 1899, judging by the severe hair and Victorian garb Dad's great Grandma (clutching a bible) is wearing....

And here we have an assortment of their children....

Auntie Alizon and I were looking for the Evans' chin, and there are a few fine examples here which may have been Dad's Grandma...

 One of these fine ladies...

Or perhaps this one....

The research continues....

Gavan's baby book

Gavan's baby book is nothing in comparison to David's tome....

But, for social history's sake, here it is...

The record keeping started to drop off....

Gavan went off the charts at an early age as well, following in his big brother's footsteps...  In fact- even earlier than David....

And you can see some of the milestones noted here...

Graeme and I didn't get baby books.


Mum was obviously far too busy for that sort of stuff, and had been there before already...


It sucks to be us....

David's Baby Book.... 1957 mothering...

I found David's baby book from 1957, and it had some interesting bits and pieces in it...  

You can imagine with David being the first born, Mum being a new mother, combined with Mum's penchant for details and numbers that there was going to be some pretty impressive record keeping going on....

The very cute baby David....

Particularly his record of weight and the advice from the nurse...

First thing to note is that he was a very robust baby... Mum's calculations are in pink....

Some pretty meticulous record keeping going on here...

The note on the bottom of the page says that he walked at 16 months...


Then, the beginning of the written instructions from the nurse....

Boiled water between feeds when awake...

Dab tummy with methylated (spirits) twice day...

At two weeks old....  Feed 3-4 hourly


At three weeks old...  Demand feeding as long as baby has at least 5 feeds day (don't think that was a problem if you look at the weight graph...)

Five to six weeks- cradle cap was a problem...

Six weeks- 3-4 drops of orange juice in 2 teaspoons of boiled water- daily about 4pm... and then gradually increasing....

And at two and a half months introducing solids- Farex to be exact.... Still available today!

Not quite three months, and starting on broth...

And at not quite 4 months adding vegetables into the broth...

And then sieving the vegetables and adding that to the diet.... He's not quite four months at this stage....

I think the date is meant to be April, not February because of the page order in the book...


Apples introduced into the diet at this stage...

Egg yolk (raw) at not quite five months and junket mentioned here....

Five and a half months, and he's on egg custard, sago milk pudding and junket!

Six months brings ground rice and dried fruit puree...

I think the nurse recommends steaming brains and vegetables here!  Erk....

Coming up to seven months here...

And nearly 8 months here....

And then the steak kicks in.... 

I have no idea what this says though...

While David's book is very prescriptive, Gavan's is not....

I will do a separate post on his book....

Advice to mothers a la 1955

Although this post is not strictly about the Wright Family, I had to include this information I found in David's baby book... 


Dr Spock (the pediatrician not the Star Trekky) was really big back in those times, and I think you can see a lot of his techniques reflected in the instructions in this book...


Check this out.....


This is the front cover... Dated 1955...

Advice on the needs of babies... (these blue pages are the inside cover pages)

Don'ts for mothers:

More "advice":

And the baby's timetable....

What do you think "Hold out" means?


And more on the back page...

Interesting stuff....


There is more hand written advice for Mum in the book which has been written by the nurse...


I will post that separately...