by Kitty Murphy

Created on: April 26, 2008   Last Updated: March 01, 2012

Mathilda Wilhemina, "Tillie", my Nana, was born in 1912. She was the first baby girl born into a long line of hard working Irish and German immigrants in Hoboken, New Jersey. Imagine if you will, the year and how long ago that was. Chronologically speaking, 96 years and 4 months. A lifetime. An entire history book. Over the course of my relatively short life, Nana told me lots of stories and of course, like every good story told by a grandma, they had a 'lesson' embedded in them which she'd quiz me on for years to come. It's funny, but the lessons she taught me, though in some ways quaint and old-fashioned, are as pertinent today as they were then. Let me explain...

That year, 1912 was the same year that the Titanic bravely set out. It was during the waning years of the industrial revolution, and as we all know, the ill-fated Titanic didn't make it to it's destination. Other inventions born in that notoriously great year lasted longer, the motorized movie camera and Life Savers for example also came to fruition in 1912. Ninety-six years ago, nearly a century, Nana too, survived a long, long time.

At that time very few people had cars, in fact one of Nana's favorite stories illustrates quite graphically just how prolific horses still were. As a young girl of eight, it was Tillie's job to take the huge metal bucket that sat by the cast iron stove and drag it outside. The bucket was heavy to start with, and dirty and smelly. Tille hated that old ugly dented bucket, but drag it she did, banging it behind her on the rocks and curbs, out to the nasty, noisy and sometimes dangerous streets. Peddlers hawking their wares lined the dusty cobblestone streets, selling fruit, fish and nuts. Police officers rode horses in those days, and fancy painted horse-drawn carriages carried the rich folks to and fro.

Tillie scanned the cobblestones for the coveted fuel she and other waifs collected for their mothers. The fuel was not gasoline, oh no! The fuel in those olden days was free! Tille's job was to collect "horse plops", yes really, horse manure mixed with undigested hay was what the poor mothers burned in their stoves in those days. Tillie was not allowed to come home until that dirty stinking now even heavier bucket was at least half full. Nana said she could still remember how her skinny little arms, barely larger than a small branch felt like they were being ripped out of her scrawny shoulder sockets. That was just part of the exercise program for kids in the dark days

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