Gallery Samples Stories of our Ancestors | Page 53

they adopted two more children: BERTIE NELSON who had been born on 26th December 1906
and then KATHLEEN, born much later in 1921.
I have no idea what Kathleen’s story was but Bertie, who was almost exactly a year older than
Leslie I knew very well. The story about Bertie was that his biological mother did her best to
bring about an abortion which resulted in the unborn child hanging on for dear life but being
born with impaired brain functioning. Rebecca, feeling desperately sorry for the little scrap
whose mother so obviously was unable to care for him, took him in and eventually adopted
him.
The irony was that through all Bertie’s difficulties and weakness and delayed milestones he
somehow was Rebecca’s favourite, right until the end of her life. Leslie, one year younger, the
perfect little boy who passed all his developmental milestones on time could never compete for
love with Bertie. Whereas Leslie grew up to be intelligent, good-looking, conscientious,
conventional and authoritarian, Bertie remained a cheerful, irresponsible child who never
grew up.
We, as children, loved him to bits!
Before we look further into the Hodgkiss household let’s take a diversion to notice the large age
discrepancies between Ruby’s parents and Leslie’s parents.
On the Chart you will see that Rebecca (mother of Leslie) was born in 1868 and Ida Anderson
(Mother of Ruby) was born in 1884. This of course made Rebecc ?????????????????%???)I????????????????????????????????1?????????????????????%??????????????????????I???)Q????????????????????????????????????????????????????????1??d?????I???e?)??????????)Q??????????????????????????????????????]?????I???????????????????????????????)????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????()\()
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