52 ancestors Week 49 (Dec. 6-12): Homemade

 Week 49 (Dec. 6-12): Homemade

Many of the ladies in my family all did knitting and sewing (of various types) and some of the men did crocheting and many things were “homemade” including jumpers and cardigans, shopping bags and even hay nets for horses. I am going to focus on my Great aunt Dora Louise Haylock (she has been in a post before so I’m not going to add all of her life story again).

Dora was my Grandad’s sister, we spent many school holidays visiting her and her husband Albert. She was old when I remember going to visit her as a child.

After Albert died Dora moved into a nursing home so that she had help and people around her, we lived 4hours drive away sadly. One of her hobbies that she continued to do in the nursing home was knitting. She would do all sorts of things – blankets, toys, jumpers etc.

In 2002 I found out I was pregnant with my 1st child. I rang Auntie Dora and told her the good news. She said that she was going to start knitting me cardigans for the baby. I told her straight away that my baby was NOT wearing knitted clothes (I had also told my Mum and Nan this!) She was a bit upset but said she would sort something for the baby. During the year her health took a turn for the worse and she became weaker and couldn’t do much. I had planned to take my baby to see her as soon as it was born (I didn’t know what I was having).

My son was born 12th November 2002 and I had planned to go to Emsworth on 23rd November to see Auntie Dora. A few days after my son was born we received a phonecall to say that Auntie Dora was in hospital and they thought she only had a few days to live, they wouldn’t allow me to take the baby in to see her sadly.

I was upset as Auntie Dora had said would “handmake” something for my baby and I hadn’t received anything, and I felt bad for saying no to cardigans. But these things happen. We had set off on 23rd November to go and see Auntie Dora (she was still holding on) and I planned to take my son in to the hospital somehow. We were an hour from home when we got the phonecall to say that she had sadly died.  We decided to turn and go home as not much we could do.

We didn’t make it to her funeral due to bad weather but the nephew of her husband placed a photo of my son on the coffin for me. So they did meet.

Move forward to the beginning of December and I received a parcel through the post from Emsworth (bit strange as didn’t have much to do with the above mentioned nephew). Inside the parcel was a “homemade” gift for my son from Auntie Dora. There was a multi-coloured knitted square blanket and a knitted doll dressed as a nurse. The enclosed note was from the nursing home, it read “please send to me great niece or nephew for their first Christmas.” She had knitted them before she became very ill. This was so lovely.

I can’t get to where they are to get a photo to add as they are in a box in the loft.

 

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