The Thirteen Dollar Baby Boy (June 7, 2016)

To borrow a famous quote from Prissy (actress Thelma "Butterfly" McQueen) in Gone with the Wind, "I [didn't] know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies" in 1955 until I came across the Wesson Maternity Hospital bill shown above . . . and interviewed my mother about it.

I have two younger brothers and one of them was born on October 30, 1955 in Springfield, Massachusetts at the Wesson Maternity Hospital. At the time, my parents, my sister, and I were living in nearby Holyoke, Massachusetts at 4 Glenn Street.  My father was the Assistant Manager at the Holyoke Sears Roebuck store and my mother was an R.N. who worked part time at the Holyoke Hospital.

My mother recently explained that when she went in to the Wesson Maternity Hospital for the birth of my brother, the delivery went so smoothly that by the third day of her "confinement" she was bored  and was up and about making beds, etc. when she was not given time with her newborn baby. She felt she was ready to go home to her husband and her other two children who were 3 1/2 and 2 1/3 years old.  She signed herself out of the hospital and as result was given two days credit at the daily room charge of $15.00. The usual stay at Wesson Maternity Hospital in 1955 was 5 to 6 days. My mother checked in on October 30th and signed herself out on November 3rd.  

As amazing as it seems to those of us who have had to pay for a birth at a hospital in the last few decades, the total bill to my parents for the delivery of my brother in 1955 was $180.18! This covered the room charge, use of the delivery room, anesthesia and the services of an Anesthetist, baby care, lab work, and drugs. From these charges, my parents were given two days of credit (-$30.00) for an unused room and $12.00 credit for unused baby care  -- a total credit of $42.00.  The health insurance that my parents had paid $125.00 and so my parents paid a net total of $13.18 [1] for my brother!

Until the discovery of this documented fact, I never knew getting a brother was so cheap! 

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[1]   The relative value of $180.18 in 1955 dollars would be about $1,590.00 in 2016. The relative value of $13.18 in 1955 dollars would be about $117.00 in 2016. See, https://www.measuringworth.com/ppowerus/?redirurl=calculators/ppowerus/

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Copyright 2016, John D. Tew

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Friday Fotos (September 20, 2013) -- Highland Grammar School, Holyoke, Massachusetts

Site of the former Highland Grammar School in Holyoke, Massachusetts (2005)

As I may have mentioned previously here at The Prism, my father's career was with Sears Roebuck and in the early years of that career he was in store management. Being in Sears store management (at least back then) was like being in the military in the sense that you and your family were transferred every few years as you climbed the ladder of management experience and responsibility. By the time I reached high school, my family had lived in seven different locations in four New England states and eventually in the New Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia. Including the high school from which I graduated, I attended six different schools before going to college.  By comparison, during their schooling my two sons attended only three schools before going to college.

The first school I attended was when I went to Kindergarten at age five while living in Holyoke, Massachusetts.  The school was a couple of blocks down the street from where we lived on Taylor Street and I walked to school.  As I recall, the large brick or stone school building was about three stories high and at the time sat in the middle of an asphalt playground area.  I do not recall any grass or trees.  The playground was where most of the boys played marbles or games with baseball cards and I often went to school with a cloth bag of marbles or a stack of baseball cards.  I only attended Highland Grammar School for that one year before we moved to Chicopee on the eastern side of the Connecticut River. My younger sister and I then attended Streiber Memorial School in Chicopee before we moved to Salem Depot, New Hampshire when my father was transferred to the Sears store in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

Highland Grammar School (years unknown)

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Photograph of former site of Highland Grammar School by the author (2005).

Postcard images of Highland Grammar School from http://www.ebay.com/itm/29605F-1914-POSTCARD-HIGHLAND-GRAMMAR-SCHOOL-HOLYOKE-MASSACHUSETTS-/190685798171 and http://usgwarchives.net/ma/hampden/postcards/ppcs-hampden.html respectively.

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Copyright 2013, John D. Tew

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Saturday Serendipity -- February 9, 2013

Here are a few serendipitous blog discoveries from this week that I commend for inclusion on your reading list.

1.            Judy G. Russell at The Legal Genealogist  has three posts well worth reading.  February 7th, "The Majesty of the Magistrate" explains the office of the magistrate and its interchangability with justice of the peace.  Two excellent posts on February 3 and 4, "Rewriting History Through DNA" & " "And the Answer is . . . " respectively, are fine reads about the discovery and positive identification of King Richard III of England.  Judy explains why both DNA science and genealogical research were needed to solve the problem of positive identification AND why it might not have been possible in just a few more years.  

2.            As New England gets walloped by a winter storm this weekend, it is interesting to read accounts of the big snowstorm that hit New England in January 1831.  Heather Wilkinson Rojo has provided that opportunity at Nutfield Genealogy.  Note that 1831 was a time before snow plows, road salting and fairly reliable predictions that the storm was even on its way.  Also, notice that there is no mention of runs on the grocery stores for eggs, bread, milk and toilet paper as we often

read or hear about these days.  :-)

3.            Having started my schooling in Holyoke, MA in kindergarten at the now non-existent Highland Grammar School, I like to check in from time-to-time at Holyoke, Mass.  The February 7th post about a 1934 furlough without pay of postal carriers and curtailment of delivery service resonates with events today.  The recent announcement of the end of Saturday mail deliveries and the nightly news about the agonizing crawl toward possible furlough without pay of federal civilian workers for up to 22 days between mid-April and October 1st makes this an interesting read.  http://holyokemass.com/2013/02/07/tuesday-mail-service-cut-to-one-delivery  Furloughs without pay and curtailment of government services are apparently nothing new! And note how postal customers in 1934 complained about having carrier deliveries only once a day!

4.            The NEHGS newsletter, The Weekly Genealogist, Vol 16, No. 6 (February 6, 2013), brings attention to an interesting article in an English on-line publication about the search for relatives of Abraham Lincoln in England today.  The English article explains how a Lincoln family dispute back in Hingham, Norfolk, England led to Abraham Lincoln being born in America. http://www.edp24.co.uk/what-s-on/the_hunt_is_on_for_norfolk_people_with_links_to_abraham_lincoln_1_1856953 

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Copyright 2013, John D. Tew

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