My biggest mystery concerns my great grandmother, born in 1891.
She was unmarried until 1926. She never had an occupation. She lived with her parents until their deaths in 1907 and 1923 respectively, and then moved in with her sister.
However, in a period when illegitimacy was looked upon as shameful she managed to give birth to my grandfather in 1913 and four other children in 1919, 1920, 1922 and 1923. The father(s) of all these children is unknown.
She also had a sixth child with her husband, but both baby and mother died in childbirth in 1929. Sadly, three of her other children also died within a year of being born.
I should add that she was also almost ten years older than her husband.
What confuses me is exactly what was going here - how and unmarried woman could be having children on such a regular basis, particularly with no apparent income and an elderly father to support.
I am, however, beginning to think that pregnancy might have been an occupational hazard, if you see what I mean. If her father was elderly and unable to work, and she had a child to support, I don't think its inconceivable that the World's oldest profession might have been her only option. It might also explain why my grandfather was so secretive about his past and early life.
I do however, feel really awful for suspecting this - I might, after all, have the wrong end of the stick entirely.
