Being Mother in "the good old days".

The Pattersons.
(BR LR) Patrick, Patricia, Alice, Edward, Steven.
(FR LR) John, Eudora, Joe, Lynn St. Clair.
Photo submitted.

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Eudora Patterson of Hantsport had seven babies between August 1947 and February 1966. Her experiences were standard for the time. But, mothers today may be a little grateful that they are living in 2014.

When Eudora had John, her first baby, in 1947, she stayed in the hospital seven days. This was standard. At the time she wondered if it was a good idea. "I became lazy." She had nothing to do. Someone else bathed her and rubbed her back. Women were literally bed-ridden for a week. They didn't exercise a muscle. Until they returned home.


Steven was born in 1950. Edward in 1951. Eudora now had three children under the age of five. "Joe helped as much as he could." But women did not encourage this.

Joe and Eudora were married in 1946. 

Most doctors discouraged mothers from nursing their babies. Mothers made their own formula using Carnation pasteurized milk. "It was terrible when the babies threw up."

Mothers used and washed cloth diapers. Eudora bought two dozen in 1947. They lasted until 1956. They were 18 inches x 36 inches, had salvage edges, and two layers of gauze.

Eventually she could buy fitted diapers which fastened with safety pins. "Once I pushed the pin right into John's skin. Did he ever bleed. But he didn't cry."

Lynn St. Clair was born in 1953. Alice in 1956. Patrick in 1959, and Patricia in 1966. Eudora remembers who was born fast, who was born slowly, which labours were easy, which labours were difficult, which was born big, and which was born small.

The Patterson babies had a Baby Tender which allowed them to sit and scoot around the room at the same time. And they had a playpen.

"Shush! The baby's sleeping," Eudora remembers repeating as motorcycles roared or as Patrick and his band practices. "They almost drove me crazy". The band's name? Eudora.  

While Eudora was taking care of the children, Joe had several businesses. She ran errands for him and answered the phone for him. She still answers the phone for him.

It wasn't all work. Eudora and Joe joined the High Tide Travellers, a square dance group. In 1987 they went to Tokyo to square dance. "It was fun but difficult when the Japanese called the dances in English."

"Would you like an apple?"

The Patterson home on Main Street is decorated with countless photos of children, grand-children, and great-grand-children. They compete with Lynn's large paintings of the shipyards. Three of the children sailed on the gypsum ships.