I is for . . .

I is for Isabella. Isabella Fairlie was the first wife of my second great grandfather Edward Biddle. Now, I know she isn’t a direct ancestor but I enjoy finding outmode about so called collateral ancestors who aren’t directly related to me. I first came across Isabella’s name on the death certificate of Edward Biddle and I became interested in her life and death, especially as the couple had children together who would have been an integral part of the lives of my Biddle family.

I found that Isabella had been born around 1871 in Ayrshire, Scotland. I don’t know anything about her life in Scotland or indeed if she even grew up in Scotland or if she grew up elsewhere. I knew that she was living in Australia by 1889, when she was married to Edward Biddle at the age of 18. Being under the age of 21 parental permission was required, and it was given by her father. So that confirmed that her father at least had come to Australia with her. However, she couldn’t have lived in Australia all that long before her marriage as on her death certificate it states that she has only been in New South Wales for 8 years. If correct, this would put her year of arrival at 1889.

It seems that there were other members of the Fairlie family living in New South Wales at the time, as the marriage took place at the residence of a William Fairlie and one of the witnesses was a David Fairlie. But Isabella’s father was John Fairlie. How were these men related to Isabelle? Were they cousins? An uncle? Or maybe even elder brothers? these are all questions which may be answered in the future with further research.

The couple had their first child in 1890, followed by a second in 1892 and a third and final child in 1896. But by 1897, Isabella was dead from Phthisis (Respiratory Tuberculosis) and Exhaustion having suffered from the former for two years. At this time in history tuberculosis was fairly widespread around the world and was the leading cause of death for 25% of the adult population in many European countries. Although Australia is not a European country, but it seems that we had similar statistics with 150,000 people dying from Tuberculosis in the years 1856 – 1906.

What makes me so interested in Isabella is the fact that her three children were still so young when she died, aged six, five, and one and a half years old. But she had suffered from the disease for two years. That means that she well and truly had the disease whilst pregnant with her final child. How hard must this have been to carry a child to term and then go through childbirth all whilst suffering such a debilitating and wasting disease.

From what I know of tuberculosis, individuals often had the disease for some time before showing the most well known symptoms such as the coughing up of bloody sputum. So Isabella probably had tuberculosis for more than two years, but regardless of how long she actually had the illness I think it would have been difficult for her children to remember her as not being sick especially as they were so young when she died. Her youngest child wouldn’t have remembered her at all, being only one and a half when his mother died.

To me, this is incredibly sad as family is something that is important to me and I am unable to imagine how hard it must be to grow up without a mother that you only remember distantly or perhaps not even at all. And I imaging also that it would have been sad for Isabella when she knew that she had tuberculosis and was unlikely to live to see her children grow up.

N. B. Tuberculosis statistics obtained from:

de Looper, Michael Willem “Death registration and mortality trends in Australia 1856-1906”, A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The Australian National University, May 2014, https://openresearchrepository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/16791/1/De%20Looper%20Thesis%202015.pdf 

D is for . . .

D is for Doris. Another great-grandmother, this time on my paternal side and with a bit of a sad twist. 

Doris was born in Liverpool, Sydney in the year of Federation 1901. At the time of her birth, her father was working as a bricklayer but just a few years later he was the proprietor of  a confectionist and tobacconist. So, presumably Doris’s life followed the same course as most girls of that era which culminated in her marriage shortly before her twenty-first birthday.

The couple’s first child followed the year after their marriage and four years later Doris gave birth to a section child. All seems normal up to this point, a young couple with two young children. But life was to change for the young family when Doris became pregnant with the couple’s third child. I don’t know whether Doris had a difficult pregnancy from the very start or if her troubles developed later. However by March 1931, just one month prior to giving birth, by all accounts Doris was suffering more and more which made it hard to care for the two young children she had at home.

I know that things must have bene looking dire, because in March of that year her husband Herbert Samuel Starr was caught stealing grocery items from the Officers’ Mess at the local army base. The case went to court in May and it is mentioned in the defence that at the time he was caught, Herbert first denied stealing the items then when it became apparent denials wouldn’t do he pleaded his wife’s illness resulting in him taking time off work. This resulted in him resorting to stealing grocery items to feed his sick wife and two young sons.

But back to March, when Doris was suffering through her third pregnancy. On 8 April 1931, she gave birth to her third son (my grandfather). Apparently, he was born small but healthy which must have seemed a relief after such an illness riddled pregnancy. But the relief was to be short lived.

Doris developed an in infection called Puerperal Pyaemia also known as childbed fever. As I understand it, the condition develops during situations such as childbirth through a lack of sterilisation of the medical environment which allows germs and bacteria to enter the body of the patient through bodily fluids. It is likely that Doris contracted childbed fever either during or shortly after the birth. Whatever the case, just eleven days after the birth of her child Doris died from Puerperal Pyaemia or childbed fever. She left behind two small children, a newborn and a husband.

Now, I had heard of childbed fever before but it astounded me that it was still prevalent in relatively modern times. When I first read Puerperal Pyeamia as the cause of Doris’s death, I didn’t know what it meant. But when I read that she had had the illness for eleven days and that her youngest child was also listed as being eleven days old, I started to get a sinking feeling in my stomach about what the unfamiliar term meant. I dutifully looked it up in google, and sadly had my suspicions confirmed.

I feel so sad to think about that she barely had time to hold her new baby before she was overtaken with sickness that she ultimately died from. And to think that it could likely have been prevented had proper sterilisation been carried out. As a result, my grandfather never got to know his mother at all which seems such a sad way to grow up.