My grandmother, Eliza Ong, was a countrywoman, small and neat and completely unflappable, with an indomitable courage and a prodigious capacity for hard work. Because she was always willing, cheerful and discreet, she became the village nurse and midwife, the person everyone turned to in times of need,' the woman you sent for' in the parlance of the times. From Wolrd War One until the advent of the National Health Service in 1948, when she was well into her sixties, she helped new people into the world and eased the going from it of those who were dying, and she saved many a life by her skill and devotion.
Eliza would never reveal her age; she was impervious to hints and when anyone resorted to a direct question, would answer, with a twinkle in her eye and a stubbornness that was characteristic of her, 'As old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth.'
As she approached her century, relatives with an eye to a telegram from the Queen, made strenuous efforts to discover the truth, but she insisted she did not want to live to be a hundred. She got her wish and kept us guessing to the very end.
In uncovering the reason for this I found myself transported back in time, living her early life with her, experiencing the sorrows and the joys, and her love of her family which extended to everyone around her. It was not a cloying love, not particularly demonstrative but it was there, solid and dependable a she was.
This is the story of her life and the small country community in which she lived, told through the eyes of her grandchildren and others who knew and loved her, and through her own vividly recounted tales that evoked so faithfully the times in which she lived.
Eliza would never reveal her age; she was impervious to hints and when anyone resorted to a direct question, would answer, with a twinkle in her eye and a stubbornness that was characteristic of her, 'As old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth.'
As she approached her century, relatives with an eye to a telegram from the Queen, made strenuous efforts to discover the truth, but she insisted she did not want to live to be a hundred. She got her wish and kept us guessing to the very end.
In uncovering the reason for this I found myself transported back in time, living her early life with her, experiencing the sorrows and the joys, and her love of her family which extended to everyone around her. It was not a cloying love, not particularly demonstrative but it was there, solid and dependable a she was.
This is the story of her life and the small country community in which she lived, told through the eyes of her grandchildren and others who knew and loved her, and through her own vividly recounted tales that evoked so faithfully the times in which she lived.
