bogeyandruby

My Auntie Shirley sent my mother a Christmas card the other day in which she had enclosed a couple of vintage photos of my maternal grandmother at a sanatorium, probably somewhere in North Wales, where she was recovering from TB.

I find it strangely hilarious that having TB was an occasion for a photoshoot back then.

In this second picture, there seems to be more staff than patients.

I wonder if they had to sign consent forms to have their photos taken back then?

I was very fond of my nain (Welsh for grandmother, pronounced nine). With an ocean separating us, I only met her a handful of times in my life. My mother and I stayed with my grandparents for several months in 1964, on our way from India to Canada, while my father went ahead to look for work and a place to live.

My grandmother and I had a few things in common. We both had frizzy hair, we were both early risers, and we both had a sweet tooth. The one difference, according to my mother, is that my grandmother was very social. She loved company and I prefer solitude.

She came to Canada only once, during the 1976 Montreal Olympics. I remember her side-lying on the twin bed in the room we shared at the end of each day, counting her candy like loose change. If she caught me looking, she’d laugh and throw me a candy. It was the last time I would see her; she died two years later, complications from a hip fracture.

I am grateful to my Aunt for sending these photos, they are precious pieces of my grandmother’s story. She was a very special person in my life, as grandparents often are.