Edwin Dohlby
When Edwin Dohlby’s father left the family his mother made ends meet by taking in washing, baby sitting and working as a midwife. She was often pestered by a gossiping cousin of her husband’s who tried to claim the insurance after Edwin’s brother died in a railway accident.
This interview comes from the UWL Oral History Program at Special Collections Murphy Library.
Transcript
Location: 1907 Charles Street
Edwin Dohlby: He was a highly educated man, but he just couldn’t hold himself.
Howard Fredricks (interviewer): So your mother had to support the family?
Dohlby: Yeah. Yeah, Mother, she took care of us. In them days there was no welfare either.
Fredricks: Where did you live?
Dohlby: When dad left in the year 1900 on the fifth of July, we lived at 1907 Charles Street in the house that’s still there, the same as it was then. You go down Charles Street and look at 1907 Charles Street, only there was a vacant lot between the house and the lower corner.
Dad, he pulled the disappearing act. He didn’t come back any more for about three years and then he wanted to come back and Ma says no. He had a cousin living on the North Side and she used to come up to our house and buy eggs and stuff and, uh, chickens for dinners. She always used to say to my mother, “Do you hear from Toale? Do you hear from Toale?” Ma says, “No,” she says, “Do you hear from him?” “Nope, I never hear from him.” Well, in 1909—June 1909—my brother John was killed on the railroad. She come up to the house and she said, “Did you send word to his father?” Mother says, “No,” she says. Oh, she used to have a big story, “I wonder if he’s living,” “I wonder if he’s dead,” and all this and that—all kinds of questions. Well, the day my brother was killed on the railroad she came running up to the house and she says to my mother, she says, “Did you send word to his father?” Ma says, “I don’t know where his father is,” she says, “and you never know where his father is.” “Oh!” She says, “I’ve got his address, I’ve got his address.” So she went down and she puts in a claim for estate for my brother’s insurance for the old man and old Judge Brindley said, “He’s on a limb,” he says, “If he comes in this courtroom,” he says, “to put that claim in,” he says, “I’ll send him away for a long time,” he says, “where the dogs won’t bother him.” So he never come. *laughter*
Yeah. So, I’ve got quite a family. Well, my mother used to take in washing, she used to do babysitting, she was a trained midwife—what they called midwife in them days where she went out and did nursing. She had that training taken in Norway. And that’s what we lived on.