Muses

The rest of the story. My grandaddy and his WWII Baby Boom.

Grandaddy.

I always called my grandfather Grandaddy even as grown woman stooping to kiss his 95-year-old head.

I knew lots about my Grandaddy but it wasn’t until he was in his late 80s that I learned the “rest of the story.”

Joining up with MamaKat this week at little late, but couldn’t resist her prompt  3.)   Tell us something you learned about a grandparent that surprised you.

*    *    *

My grandfather was a obstetrician in Orlando from the 1920s till he retired. Back then Orlando was citrus, mosquitoes and beautiful sandy-bottomed lakes.

And babies needing to be delivered, for where men and women reside in close proximity that tends to happen.

So Grandaddy delivered lots of babies through the Depression and then came WWII.

All the doctors enlisted and went over to serve. I mean all.

But Grandaddy couldn’t pass the physical because of phlebitis in a leg. An injury sustained when an old sterilizer burst (basically a bladder filled with boiling water).

This troubled him greatly but what could he do?

So Grandaddy and another obstetrician in Brooksville (town outside of Tampa) where the only baby-delivers in Central Florida. All the rest went to Europe. Not to deliver babies but help patch-up babies who had grown into young men.

For a period of a few years, these two men delivered every baby born between Tampa and Orlando.

* I had always heard my grandmother say how Grandaddy slept with his shoes during that time.

Doctors made house calls back then.

*  I had always heard how just to see his Dad (who was never home) my Dad went on the calls with him. My Dad jokes how he knew what everyone’s living room looked like in Orlando for that is where he sat waiting for his father.

But not until his late 80s did I hear the rest of the WWII Baby Boomer story.

When the war was over and all the doctors back at their practices, Grandaddy invited them all to a banquet.

At the end of the meal, he handed each one an envelope.

In it was all the monies he had collected from their patients during the time they were gone.

He said it was the least he could do because he was unable to serve.

*   *   *

I was the oldest of his granddaughters.

After I went to law school, he said I reminded him of Portia from the Merchant of Venice.

image credit

 

I think that highly unlikely, but I loved it that my Grandaddy thought it so.

What about your grandparents? Any surprises for you?

 

 

Mama’s Losin’ It
 

           

           

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