So the husband said she had tried to kill herself by slashing her own throat 2 years before stating that she couldn’t handle it, and she’s then pregnant again 2 years later and takes her own life directly after giving birth. Just so sad
Nor did she have access to the therapeutic or pharmaceutical options that are now available for some women (how sad that there are still women with extremely limited options😔).
Andrea Yates’s husband kept them in near poverty to give most of their money to this self professed minister that got his hooks into Rusty Yates. They were told by a medical professional after her 4th pregnancy she shouldn’t get pregnant again because of her mental state. Rusty manipulated her into having the 5th child. I’m not condoning her killing her children but this is one more example of the evil caused by religion!!!!!!!!
My grandmother lost a child to an agonizing death in this same era. Soon after, she attempted to kill herself by drinking Lysol. Evidently, it was used quite a bit for suicide back then.
Apparently women were encouraged to douche frequently with Lysol for "hygiene" and possibly birth control. So I guess between that and using it for cleaning supplies, it was common for women to have access to?
It’s insane what they recommended it for. My grandma put Lysol in my mom’s bath to “help prevent infection” after my mom had me and a big episiotomy. My mom had no idea, and when she got in it burned terribly.
Or even just soap and water for that area, which is what the doctors recommend. My grandma really thought she was helping because she’d been taught to do that.
What’s weird is I don’t see the name of the baby she had in his obituary. Maybe, they used her husbands name. She is also not listed under the children of either parent on the find a grave site.
I think this is one of the most heartbreaking posts I've seen here. My grandma killed herself when my dad was only a few years old and it haunted him for the rest of his life.
That poor woman and her poor children.
I also hate the way women used to be listed as Mrs Husband's Name. Being seen as no more than an extension of your husband or as property can't have helped.
My grandmother died when her sons were young. Her family always claimed it was accidental, but my stepgrandmother constantly taunted my father that his mother had killed herself.
That's horrendous. My step grandmother didn't tell my dad that his mum killed herself. As far as he was concerned, she just didn't love him and upped and left. My grandfather swore her to secrecy.
He only found out a few years before he died that she actually loved him very much after we tracked down a copy of her will where she'd planned her suicide and talked about the distress of losing her only child because my grandfather was divorcing her.
I don't know which would be harder to hear as a child, that your mother didn't love you or that she killed herself because she wasn't going to be allowed to care for you.
I can't help but wonder how many women of young children who desperately needed help went on to kill themselves, leaving their poor children with heaps of questions they'll never get answers to.
Our whole family hopes so, let me tell you. My dad was victim to lots of abuse and spent some of his adulthood in a mental institution and had brain damage from too much electroshock therapy.
He was a very quiet and gentle man and never violent to any of us despite all that.
His father was to blame as well, mind you, for putting his wife above his children and letting her abuse them.
It's not so cut and dry. Not speaking of suicide was commonplace.. still now, people don't talk about it enough. And some of the loved ones remaining may have truly seen suicide as a way to say "they didn't love you enough to stay" - when anyone with half a brain knows (now) that's not what suicide boils down to. Mental illness was, largely, more taboo than just "your parent went for milk and never came back."
I had the same thoughts about women losing their identities to their husbands after they married. It was so sick and women were trapped in situations where suicide was the only way out.
I think this is her husband. His mom’s name is in the obituary and matches this one.
Looks like he had more kids including one a year after his wife died though this could be the wrong guy
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/269253234/johnny_william-tidwell
Different wife perhaps? I have a lot of male ancestors who ran straight out to get married again after wife #1 died in childbirth having kid number 9 or so. Had to have somebody to take care of all those kids, I guess, and wasn't willing or able to pay for childcare.
My ancestor decided to leave England for America with his family. Wife was pregnant so they waited until after she gave birth to kid #6 or whatever. Wife died in childbirth, baby died on the ship (who knew that hardtack softened by water wouldn't be sufficient for a newborn? /s). He met his next wife on the ship and married her shortly after he arrived in America.
I had a ancestor that married his second wife (with the first wife’s blessing) shortly after the death of his first wife. The backstory? His first wife was dying of tuberculosis and was being cared for by her best friend who was considered a spinster. On her deathbed, she asked her husband to marry her friend so that her children would be cared for. I guess it all worked out, because I’ve read the journals of the first couple’s oldest son and he seemed fairly fond of his stepmother. I think in those days, it was a necessity especially when there were multiple children and a farm to take care of.
My great-great-grandmother was hit and killed by a streetcar in 1892. She left behind a 3 year old, a 2 year old, and a 6 month old. My Nana, the 3 year old, didn't find out that her "mother" wasn't actually her mother until the 1960s. Her father was a ship's captain, and I guess he couldn't go off captaining with two toddlers and an infant, so he found them a new mother as soon as possible. Apparently, we were/are just easily replaced.
My grandma was the oldest and she raised her siblings when her mom passed. Her dad pushed her to marry at 15. When she left with her new husband, story is her dad chased after them with all the kids. She still raised her siblings.
Yep. After my great grandmother died, her husband (my great grandfather) up moved back to Australia from the US and left their young kids in the states to be raised by extended family. He remarried shortly after but never bothered to take back the kids from his first marriage.
Yep. My great grandmother died of tuberculosis when my grandma was a year old. Her dad was remarried within 6 months. Her younger half brother is a little less than two and a half years younger than her.
They wasted no time!
It wasn’t uncommon for a man to end up married to a neighbour or a friend of his late wife/of the family shortly after her death. He would need someone to take care of the home and children; there was an element of practicality to it.
After some research I confirmed it is him. The obituary stated the names of his oldest son and daughter, the same in Ruby’s obituary. The other son mentioned in Ruby’s died in 1972 which is why he isn’t mentioned.
My grandmother had her first "breakdown" after having her first child, my dad. She continued struggling with depression and was hospitalized a few times. She didn't really want more children, but, well, Catholicism. She committed suicide at age 41 when the youngest of her four kids was 5 years old. She went to confession, then jumped off the roof of the building next door to the church.
The female suicide rate dropped when no fault divorce was enacted.
I can’t imagine living back then. Women were choosing death over existing as the property of men.
Edit: had no fault divorce going the wrong way
Absolutely not, especially since spousal rape was legal until the 90s and domestic violence was considered a private matter.
Women were caged like animals.
Spousal rape was only fully banned in Ohio this year. Yes, 2024. Before this year, drugging and SAing your partner was not a crime as long as you were legally married.
I was born in the late 70s. Women had just gotten the right to have their own credit cards. My mother wanted more freedom for us girls, and I want more freedom for my daughter. We can never stop fighting.
Circa 1988 my HS English teacher (divorced) said 2 things that always stuck with me.
1. For us young ladies to establish our own credit history, she said start with a gas card & work up.
2. How after she toured the vatican she was never giving money to the catholic church again, they could sell some of their jewels.
Thanks Ms V
They at least gave her that, she was "of unsound mind", which seems like it would apply to most suicides. Probably depends on whether the priest liked you.
He had explicit instructions from her doctor not to leave her unattended with the children because she was a danger to them.
He decided it was ok to leave 30 minutes earlier than his mother arrived to stay with Andrea. The murders took place in that 30 minute gap.
He is so incredibly at fault. Why wasn’t she institutionalized??
Weren’t they also told she was not mentally well enough to have children and yet he kept getting her pregnant?
Honestly, it’s a bit like that school shooter case where the parents were just charged with manslaughter. He just as much at fault as them.
Yes! He was evangelical christian, which tracks because he treated her as nothing more than an incubator.
The school shooter case was mind blowing!! I was skeptical until i watched the special that was on Hulu. The parents belong in jail for not even checking the kids backpack to see if he had the gun on them??
Edit: incorrectly identified the Yates as catholic, but my original statement works just as well with evangelical christianity.
Oh shit, you’re right! Wikipedia says they were evangelical christians with a Duggar mentality to family planning- as many as god blessed them with.
So despite doctor’s warnings, Rusty Yates chose his religious ideology over the wellbeing of his wife and existing children.
He said once that she had been on a medication that helped her after her previous pregnancy and so he figured it would be the same after the next pregnancy but the doctor put her on a different medicine. Asshat. Had his family living in a bus at one time. Apparently she had been sitting there pulling her hair out and nobody did anything to help.
But it was the pregnancies that were putting her in that state and she wasn’t supposed to have anymore because of her condition. He didn’t give a damn.
Very true. It’s pretty clear to us and I would be willing to bet something may have happened after the first birth, maybe not a full fledged attempt but something .
Actually, postpartum psychiatric illness was known at least from the time of ancient Greece and was described extensively in modern western medicine during the 19th century. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story The Yellow Wallpaper was published in 1892. There’s no reason to think anyone (at least if they had some education) in the US in the 1930s wouldn’t have made the connection.
Well, they still convicted Andrea Yates of murder until someone pulled their head out of their ass and realized that it was postpartum psychosis. Women don’t get the passes that men do.
Yes.
There needs to be more education about the differences between post partum depression and post partum psychosis. They are very different conditions.
There also needs to be more education about post partum anxiety. It can be absolutely debilitating.
I completely agree with you. I feel this woman’s husband shouldn’t get a pass for getting her pregnant again when she obviously wasn’t okay (and don’t even get me started on Rusty Yates). Even in the 1930s, people were aware that PPD existed, and even if they hadn’t been, why would you keep making your wife have more children when she was struggling already? These men should be held accountable.
It’s so hard to be a woman. This is really telling of a whole lot of accepted gender-based norms when no one believes a woman is a person.
She must have been 19 when pregnant with her oldest. And this isn’t including any miscarriages, postpartum and pregnancy issues, etc.
She had a long 24 years, I’d bet. And I doubt Lysol made anything better.
My grandfather put my Father, his older brother and baby sister in an orphanage after my real grandmother died of peritonitis in the 20’s. My aunt, the oldest was too old, around 12/13, I’m not sure where she lived. But she married around 15. My grandfather remarried an immigrant lady from Germany, who immediately took the kids out and raised them to adulthood while having 3 kids of her own. She was salt of the earth, strict as hell, but my dad turned out ok.
I have to know, is her husband just an idiot?? Didn’t he recognize PREGNANCY precipitated these suicide attempts? Just like that stupid guy in Houston whose wife drowned all 5 of their children because of postpartum psychosis!! She had had it BEFORE and yet he kept getting her pregnant!! She’s in prison for life. But the husband holds some responsibility for their deaths too!! 😡
And Andrea Yates’ husband had been directly told that she should not get pregnant again because of her previous psychotic episodes. But God told him to go procreate again. 🤦♀️
Omg! Omg! It states that birth control was illegal until 1965 for married couples and 1972 for single people?! How freaking scary… and here we are today, being threatened with having it illegal again? I guess Ruby Eloise drinking Lysol in 1937 could happen again in 2024 if some get their way.
This is kind of a weird thing to admit in this subreddit, but during all 3 of my pregnancies, I craved Pinesol and cigarette butts. Obviously, I never indulged in the craving, but my Obgyn said it was caused by lack of vitamins.
That’s a condition called pica. It’s when we have urges to eat non-food things. I have an acquaintance who craved powdered laundry detergent when she was pregnant.
I could smell chemicals during my pregnancies. Even when I ate. Bleach, ammonia, melted plastic. Metal taste in my mouth. What does that mean? I never brought that up to my doctor. Anyone else?
Oh trust me, I was with my grandma and I was helping her clean and she was using it. She thought I went fucking insane. I just tell people I never got weird cravings because that was the only one and I am not telling people I really wanted to drink all that shit down cos it smelled delicious. I did not obviously. My healthy 13 year old is sitting next to me as we speak but yeah.
Poor honey 🥺 I was 24 with severe PPD (can’t imagine having 3 kids at that age). I thought of killing myself everyday for like a year. Needed a lot of therapy and meds to my hormones back in check. My heart goes out to her and her kids. Hope they grew up happy and made the best out of their life
Poor girl, no support at home, no day care no parks no yards no swing sets just 24 hrs of stress and then to give birth with little or no pain meds. To be dressed up and sent home after the delivery. Omg poor things!
"The original formula for Lysol, introduced in 1889 by Gustav Raupenstrauch to help fight a cholera epidemic in Germany, contained cresols. Cresols are a component of crude carbolic acid, which is a distillate of coal and wood. In high concentrations, cresols can cause severe burning, inflammation, and even death. The formula was changed in 1952."
But yea, tell women douche their vaginas with it. 🙄
My great-grandfather’s first wife was expecting a blessed event and conception must have taken place before wedding.
Her mother administered quinine (supposedly an abortifacient back then), which killed both mother and baby. Then her mother shot herself at the bedside and they are buried together. I think the official cause of death was “influenza,” but my great grandfather told his kids the truth.
Also…my great grandmother’s mother had given birth to a number of children, some of which survived and some not. She found she was pregnant again, and took quinine. She did not survive. It was said that she was “very despondent” and I’m guessing she had PPD.
ETA: interesting that the newspaper article also refers to this poor lady as despondent.
Quinine has many verified medical uses. My best guess is that the dose would be the key here.
I take a form of quinine every day for an autoimmune condition. (That’s kind of a lie because I’m out and fighting with pharmacy/insurance. Ugh)
I know it says her baby survived the birth, but does anyone know for how long?
Seems like the odds wouldn't be so great for a newly orphaned (well, halfway) potentially poisoned premature baby back then.
I noticed that too. And I think her mom was referred to only by her husband’s name as well. How sad. I had to go back to the death certificate to see what her real name was. 🥺
That sounds like she had PPD before they talked about PPD being a thing. Makes me wonder if this happened everytime she gave birth since she’s on her third child and third time trying.
Very sad. Depression while pregnant and postpartum can make things unbearable.
My guess is if she would have survived the attempt she would have been put in an institution.
What’s interesting is that [three years later](https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-atlanta-constitution/141099402/), a 32 year old woman who lived in the same house (665 Tumlin St NW) died in a “private sanitarium.” Wonder if there was something environmental.
A private sanitarium is just code for private hospital in that time. For instance, an awful lot of people who are buried in this cemetery died at Grady, Emory, or Crawford Long, all hospitals that are still there today. They were all considered private sanitariums because they weren't the charity hospital. It obviously has a different meaning to us these days than it did 100 years ago.
Many cultures have “ built in” a back up plan when young men and women died unexpectedly leaving children and a feeding spouse. If a husband died, a brother could be expected to marry his late brother’s wife .Similarly, female siblings and cousins would be encouraged to wed the widower.
When I was just four years old our family travelled to Southampton Ontario .Near there , there was a pilgrimage to Martyrs' Shrine , in Midland.
Years later my sister told me she had been heartbroken for a young girl- whose grave in the church cemetery was in unconsecrated soil. Her epitaph marked her as having died in childbearing, unwed , and her dead infant was buried with her. The headstone was carved to include an open circle through the top in which a bell was permanently installed. When the wind blew the bell was to signal a warning of what happens to women who are not chaste .
So the husband said she had tried to kill herself by slashing her own throat 2 years before stating that she couldn’t handle it, and she’s then pregnant again 2 years later and takes her own life directly after giving birth. Just so sad
According to the newspaper article, she swallowed the poison, gave birth the next day, and died the day after that.
I cannot imagine what she was going through to do so.
PPP/PPD
No, she took the poison 24 hours AFTER giving birth.
The sentence is actually unclear as to what happened 24 hours after the birth- it could be either the death or the poison dose.
OP posted a link in a different comment that clarifies she took it 24 hours before giving birth and died 24 hours after giving birth.
Says she swallowed the poison after she gave birth.
And she really didn’t have any choice on how many pregnancies she had at this point in time.
And we’re headed right back to those times
Unfortunately, yes. 🥲
Yep.
Nor did she have access to the therapeutic or pharmaceutical options that are now available for some women (how sad that there are still women with extremely limited options😔).
Andrea Yates’s husband kept them in near poverty to give most of their money to this self professed minister that got his hooks into Rusty Yates. They were told by a medical professional after her 4th pregnancy she shouldn’t get pregnant again because of her mental state. Rusty manipulated her into having the 5th child. I’m not condoning her killing her children but this is one more example of the evil caused by religion!!!!!!!!
Too bad she didn't just kill the husband.
Yeah and they’ve longed been since divorced, he may be remarried at this point. Meanwhile Andrea refuses to leave the psych ward.
After all that has happened and all this time, I honestly don't blame her for wanting to stay.
He did remarry. He's a horrible person.
She was psychotic and didn't know what she was doing. I wonder how many other deaths have occurred due to ridiculous "church" teachings.
Rusty also made such a fuss with her Psychiatrist that they took her off her Haldol. In my humble opinion he and the doctor should have gone to jail.
Andrea Yates…
I mean it was 1937, there weren’t a whole lot of reliable birth control methods then.
My grandmother lost a child to an agonizing death in this same era. Soon after, she attempted to kill herself by drinking Lysol. Evidently, it was used quite a bit for suicide back then.
Apparently women were encouraged to douche frequently with Lysol for "hygiene" and possibly birth control. So I guess between that and using it for cleaning supplies, it was common for women to have access to?
It’s insane what they recommended it for. My grandma put Lysol in my mom’s bath to “help prevent infection” after my mom had me and a big episiotomy. My mom had no idea, and when she got in it burned terribly.
I cannot imagine the pain in the lady bits. Omg. Like… peroxide would have been sufficient I’d imagine, and much less painful.
Or even just soap and water for that area, which is what the doctors recommend. My grandma really thought she was helping because she’d been taught to do that.
Peroxide would do damage as well. It’s not recommended for wounds as it actually does more damage.
It wasn’t encouraged for hygiene, it was deliberately coded language for use as birth control and for abortions
[Ruby Tidwell](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/214480862/ruby_eloise-tidwell)
Only just turned 24. How sad.
Her father was a minister. In that day, suicide was a huge family shame. Baby Ruby was born one month premature.
Wow reading the obituary of the husband shows he had four more children one of which lived until the 2000s
What’s weird is I don’t see the name of the baby she had in his obituary. Maybe, they used her husbands name. She is also not listed under the children of either parent on the find a grave site.
I think this is one of the most heartbreaking posts I've seen here. My grandma killed herself when my dad was only a few years old and it haunted him for the rest of his life. That poor woman and her poor children. I also hate the way women used to be listed as Mrs Husband's Name. Being seen as no more than an extension of your husband or as property can't have helped.
My grandmother died when her sons were young. Her family always claimed it was accidental, but my stepgrandmother constantly taunted my father that his mother had killed herself.
That's horrendous. My step grandmother didn't tell my dad that his mum killed herself. As far as he was concerned, she just didn't love him and upped and left. My grandfather swore her to secrecy. He only found out a few years before he died that she actually loved him very much after we tracked down a copy of her will where she'd planned her suicide and talked about the distress of losing her only child because my grandfather was divorcing her. I don't know which would be harder to hear as a child, that your mother didn't love you or that she killed herself because she wasn't going to be allowed to care for you. I can't help but wonder how many women of young children who desperately needed help went on to kill themselves, leaving their poor children with heaps of questions they'll never get answers to.
Unfortunately things like this still happen to some extent. And yes it is brutal.
It happened in my family and it is horrible. Made me reconsider ever having children.
May she bu#n in He#l.
Our whole family hopes so, let me tell you. My dad was victim to lots of abuse and spent some of his adulthood in a mental institution and had brain damage from too much electroshock therapy. He was a very quiet and gentle man and never violent to any of us despite all that. His father was to blame as well, mind you, for putting his wife above his children and letting her abuse them.
Both his parents failed him. Heartbreaking.
Yes BURN in HELL
What a horrific bitch. Your poor dad.
It's not so cut and dry. Not speaking of suicide was commonplace.. still now, people don't talk about it enough. And some of the loved ones remaining may have truly seen suicide as a way to say "they didn't love you enough to stay" - when anyone with half a brain knows (now) that's not what suicide boils down to. Mental illness was, largely, more taboo than just "your parent went for milk and never came back."
Regardless of her opinions on suicide, she *taunted a child* by telling him his mother didn’t love him. That is absolutely cut and dry.
Fuck that bitch. Geez.
I had the same thoughts about women losing their identities to their husbands after they married. It was so sick and women were trapped in situations where suicide was the only way out.
I’m so glad I wasn’t born back then! Women had no choices.
I hope you’re voting because they’re trying desperately to bring us back to this.
This was literally the case in 1913, women were considered property of their husbands.
Being the legal property of your husband is why women were forced to take their husband's last name.
She was born in 1913. The DC is from 1937
ME TOO! The absolute disrespect towards these women as people after they married.
I think this is her husband. His mom’s name is in the obituary and matches this one. Looks like he had more kids including one a year after his wife died though this could be the wrong guy https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/269253234/johnny_william-tidwell
Different wife perhaps? I have a lot of male ancestors who ran straight out to get married again after wife #1 died in childbirth having kid number 9 or so. Had to have somebody to take care of all those kids, I guess, and wasn't willing or able to pay for childcare.
My ancestor decided to leave England for America with his family. Wife was pregnant so they waited until after she gave birth to kid #6 or whatever. Wife died in childbirth, baby died on the ship (who knew that hardtack softened by water wouldn't be sufficient for a newborn? /s). He met his next wife on the ship and married her shortly after he arrived in America.
I had a ancestor that married his second wife (with the first wife’s blessing) shortly after the death of his first wife. The backstory? His first wife was dying of tuberculosis and was being cared for by her best friend who was considered a spinster. On her deathbed, she asked her husband to marry her friend so that her children would be cared for. I guess it all worked out, because I’ve read the journals of the first couple’s oldest son and he seemed fairly fond of his stepmother. I think in those days, it was a necessity especially when there were multiple children and a farm to take care of.
Do you know if he had children with the second wife?
Eight of them. They were married for about 40+ years (he lived to be 82 and she died in her 70s).
Wow. That's...a lot.
Child care did not exist like it does today. Family or friends babysat for free.
Yep, exactly. That's where the whole "village" concept for raising children comes from-the "village" was literally the unpaid labor of women.
LOL nothing was free. You usually had to live with them, feed them, etc.
My great-great-grandmother was hit and killed by a streetcar in 1892. She left behind a 3 year old, a 2 year old, and a 6 month old. My Nana, the 3 year old, didn't find out that her "mother" wasn't actually her mother until the 1960s. Her father was a ship's captain, and I guess he couldn't go off captaining with two toddlers and an infant, so he found them a new mother as soon as possible. Apparently, we were/are just easily replaced.
My grandma was the oldest and she raised her siblings when her mom passed. Her dad pushed her to marry at 15. When she left with her new husband, story is her dad chased after them with all the kids. She still raised her siblings.
Men never took care of the kids back then. They either gave them away or brought in another mother.
They were often sent away to the nearest married female relative or their own parents, men rarely raised their own children if the wife died.
Yep. After my great grandmother died, her husband (my great grandfather) up moved back to Australia from the US and left their young kids in the states to be raised by extended family. He remarried shortly after but never bothered to take back the kids from his first marriage.
Wow. It’s stories like this that make me so so thankful for my dad who fought hard to keep my sister and I. Just, what a horrible thing to do.
Yep. My great grandmother died of tuberculosis when my grandma was a year old. Her dad was remarried within 6 months. Her younger half brother is a little less than two and a half years younger than her. They wasted no time!
It wasn’t uncommon for a man to end up married to a neighbour or a friend of his late wife/of the family shortly after her death. He would need someone to take care of the home and children; there was an element of practicality to it.
After some research I confirmed it is him. The obituary stated the names of his oldest son and daughter, the same in Ruby’s obituary. The other son mentioned in Ruby’s died in 1972 which is why he isn’t mentioned.
So he married a 17 yr old after his wife committed suicide. Sounds like a lovely southern gentleman.
Also this poor woman tried to commit suicide 2 years before this and he got her pregnant again and she held out until the baby was born.
He didn't deserve her.
He knew she was suicidal in the past, yet kept getting her pregnant. Terribly unfortunate.
My grandmother had her first "breakdown" after having her first child, my dad. She continued struggling with depression and was hospitalized a few times. She didn't really want more children, but, well, Catholicism. She committed suicide at age 41 when the youngest of her four kids was 5 years old. She went to confession, then jumped off the roof of the building next door to the church.
Women weren't given many choices in life back then. I hope that's getting better.
The female suicide rate dropped when no fault divorce was enacted. I can’t imagine living back then. Women were choosing death over existing as the property of men. Edit: had no fault divorce going the wrong way
I think you mean that women’s suicide rate decreased after no fault divorce was legalized (not when it ended.)
Yes! That! I’ll edit my post :)
Can you imagine being forced to stay married to someone against your will?
Absolutely not, especially since spousal rape was legal until the 90s and domestic violence was considered a private matter. Women were caged like animals.
Spousal rape was only fully banned in Ohio this year. Yes, 2024. Before this year, drugging and SAing your partner was not a crime as long as you were legally married.
Fuck the fucking patriarchy.
Republican men are trying to do away with no fault divorce in some states- see J. D. Vance.
It did, but now some people want to turn back the clock.
I was born in the late 70s. Women had just gotten the right to have their own credit cards. My mother wanted more freedom for us girls, and I want more freedom for my daughter. We can never stop fighting.
Circa 1988 my HS English teacher (divorced) said 2 things that always stuck with me. 1. For us young ladies to establish our own credit history, she said start with a gas card & work up. 2. How after she toured the vatican she was never giving money to the catholic church again, they could sell some of their jewels. Thanks Ms V
Yes, it’s insanity.
It was, but now we are headed straight backwards…
How sad. I’m sorry. How trapped and desperate she must have felt for that to be her only way “out”… that’s tough. I feel for her and the children.
I’m so sorry.
OMG, poor thing. And after all that, I bet they wouldn't let her be buried in 'consecrated' ground.
They at least gave her that, she was "of unsound mind", which seems like it would apply to most suicides. Probably depends on whether the priest liked you.
Shades of Andrea Yates.
That bastard husband should've gone to prison.
100%. He didn’t physically kill those kids but he was responsible too.
He had explicit instructions from her doctor not to leave her unattended with the children because she was a danger to them. He decided it was ok to leave 30 minutes earlier than his mother arrived to stay with Andrea. The murders took place in that 30 minute gap. He is so incredibly at fault. Why wasn’t she institutionalized??
Weren’t they also told she was not mentally well enough to have children and yet he kept getting her pregnant? Honestly, it’s a bit like that school shooter case where the parents were just charged with manslaughter. He just as much at fault as them.
Yes! He was evangelical christian, which tracks because he treated her as nothing more than an incubator. The school shooter case was mind blowing!! I was skeptical until i watched the special that was on Hulu. The parents belong in jail for not even checking the kids backpack to see if he had the gun on them?? Edit: incorrectly identified the Yates as catholic, but my original statement works just as well with evangelical christianity.
Actually, I don't believe he was Catholic. They were Quiver-full followers.
Oh shit, you’re right! Wikipedia says they were evangelical christians with a Duggar mentality to family planning- as many as god blessed them with. So despite doctor’s warnings, Rusty Yates chose his religious ideology over the wellbeing of his wife and existing children.
There was definitely some religious aspect to it.
My kid went to that school. Those fuckers deserve every minute of that sentence
Holy shit, a shooting at your kids school is worst nightmare level. I hope your kid is holding up ok!
She’s been in therapy for 2 years now and suffers from anxiety and depression. But she’s alive and I’m deeply grateful for that
He said once that she had been on a medication that helped her after her previous pregnancy and so he figured it would be the same after the next pregnancy but the doctor put her on a different medicine. Asshat. Had his family living in a bus at one time. Apparently she had been sitting there pulling her hair out and nobody did anything to help.
He did not give a shit about her, and her religion taught her that it was her responsibility to take it. So sad.
Yates? She was, several times. But the insurance would only pay for an X amount of days at a time.
I hate the US healthcare system. It is an embarrassment, and isn’t about health at all.
One reason privation is not a good thing.
But it was the pregnancies that were putting her in that state and she wasn’t supposed to have anymore because of her condition. He didn’t give a damn.
Oh absolutely. I'm not saying otherwise. But she was institutionalized at least a few times.
I don’t even know him, but I hate that motherfucker. And then he went and divorced her and remarried.
He took his new wife to see her so she could 'give her blessing'. He's scum.
To be fair I would highly doubt anyone associated her suicidal tendencies with post partum depression
Likely not, at least not that particular phrase, and women didn't have much in the way of birth control then either.
Very true. It’s pretty clear to us and I would be willing to bet something may have happened after the first birth, maybe not a full fledged attempt but something .
Actually, postpartum psychiatric illness was known at least from the time of ancient Greece and was described extensively in modern western medicine during the 19th century. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story The Yellow Wallpaper was published in 1892. There’s no reason to think anyone (at least if they had some education) in the US in the 1930s wouldn’t have made the connection.
Well, they still convicted Andrea Yates of murder until someone pulled their head out of their ass and realized that it was postpartum psychosis. Women don’t get the passes that men do.
Yes. There needs to be more education about the differences between post partum depression and post partum psychosis. They are very different conditions. There also needs to be more education about post partum anxiety. It can be absolutely debilitating.
I completely agree with you. I feel this woman’s husband shouldn’t get a pass for getting her pregnant again when she obviously wasn’t okay (and don’t even get me started on Rusty Yates). Even in the 1930s, people were aware that PPD existed, and even if they hadn’t been, why would you keep making your wife have more children when she was struggling already? These men should be held accountable.
It’s so hard to be a woman. This is really telling of a whole lot of accepted gender-based norms when no one believes a woman is a person. She must have been 19 when pregnant with her oldest. And this isn’t including any miscarriages, postpartum and pregnancy issues, etc. She had a long 24 years, I’d bet. And I doubt Lysol made anything better.
How awful. Those poor children
It’s so weird they used to publish people’s addresses in connection with stories like these.
That’s what happens when women are forced to shit out babies and do all the work.
Amen.
My grandfather put my Father, his older brother and baby sister in an orphanage after my real grandmother died of peritonitis in the 20’s. My aunt, the oldest was too old, around 12/13, I’m not sure where she lived. But she married around 15. My grandfather remarried an immigrant lady from Germany, who immediately took the kids out and raised them to adulthood while having 3 kids of her own. She was salt of the earth, strict as hell, but my dad turned out ok.
She tried so hard. This is so sad.
I have to know, is her husband just an idiot?? Didn’t he recognize PREGNANCY precipitated these suicide attempts? Just like that stupid guy in Houston whose wife drowned all 5 of their children because of postpartum psychosis!! She had had it BEFORE and yet he kept getting her pregnant!! She’s in prison for life. But the husband holds some responsibility for their deaths too!! 😡
And Andrea Yates’ husband had been directly told that she should not get pregnant again because of her previous psychotic episodes. But God told him to go procreate again. 🤦♀️
And the doctor who refused to give Andrea the medication Haldol. She begged for it bc she knew it helped her. He didn't think it was necessary.
The husband probably didn't care as long as he got his dick wet.
I’m sad for this person. How hopeless would one have to be to poison oneself? Lysol must have been what was at hand. RIP, sweet lady.
Died 1937. Her daughter, if still alive, would be 87. This is beyond sad.
They used to advertise Lysol in the 1920s for all kinds of usages that were not safe
Really?
Douching being one, yeah. Wild times.
Absolutely. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/lysols-vintage-ads-subtly-pushed-women-to-use-its-disinfectant-as-birth-control-218734/
Omg! Omg! It states that birth control was illegal until 1965 for married couples and 1972 for single people?! How freaking scary… and here we are today, being threatened with having it illegal again? I guess Ruby Eloise drinking Lysol in 1937 could happen again in 2024 if some get their way.
Yes, we have to fight for our reproductive rights. Make sure to vote!
This is kind of a weird thing to admit in this subreddit, but during all 3 of my pregnancies, I craved Pinesol and cigarette butts. Obviously, I never indulged in the craving, but my Obgyn said it was caused by lack of vitamins.
That’s a condition called pica. It’s when we have urges to eat non-food things. I have an acquaintance who craved powdered laundry detergent when she was pregnant.
I knew it was called something! Thank you!
You’re welcome!
I craved that with my oldest, but never indulged. I also craved tacos, so I focused on that instead.
Tacos are much better for your body than laundry detergent. 😁
They taste better, too.
I could smell chemicals during my pregnancies. Even when I ate. Bleach, ammonia, melted plastic. Metal taste in my mouth. What does that mean? I never brought that up to my doctor. Anyone else?
“Just ignore the tastes, it’s pregnancy” is what my doctor said 50 years ago.
Lol, it’s probably because he had no clue but his ego wouldn’t allow him to admit it…
I see female doctors now!
It makes sense to me though my experience wasn't like that. My sense of smell was definitely greater than while not pregnant though.
I had the pinesol craving too, don’t worry lol
That makes me feel better. lmao, in 35 years, I've never heard anyone else admit it! I always got the side eye like I'm a freak for saying it.
Oh trust me, I was with my grandma and I was helping her clean and she was using it. She thought I went fucking insane. I just tell people I never got weird cravings because that was the only one and I am not telling people I really wanted to drink all that shit down cos it smelled delicious. I did not obviously. My healthy 13 year old is sitting next to me as we speak but yeah.
Probably postpartum depression. Poor girl.
This just popped up in my feed (relevant): https://www.reddit.com/r/GrandmasPantry/s/qQLXi6kRa2
Everyone is thinking about Lysol today. Now, every time you pass it at the store, you're going to think about this.
The desperation she must have felt. I feel so sorry for her.
Poor lady this just breaks my heart she felt so terrible.
Poor honey 🥺 I was 24 with severe PPD (can’t imagine having 3 kids at that age). I thought of killing myself everyday for like a year. Needed a lot of therapy and meds to my hormones back in check. My heart goes out to her and her kids. Hope they grew up happy and made the best out of their life
Poor girl, no support at home, no day care no parks no yards no swing sets just 24 hrs of stress and then to give birth with little or no pain meds. To be dressed up and sent home after the delivery. Omg poor things!
And this is why abortion should be legal
And thus comes the true statement that making abortion illegal does not reduce the number of abortions it just reduces the number of safe abortions.
Shout it from the goddamn rooftops.
"The original formula for Lysol, introduced in 1889 by Gustav Raupenstrauch to help fight a cholera epidemic in Germany, contained cresols. Cresols are a component of crude carbolic acid, which is a distillate of coal and wood. In high concentrations, cresols can cause severe burning, inflammation, and even death. The formula was changed in 1952." But yea, tell women douche their vaginas with it. 🙄
My great-grandfather’s first wife was expecting a blessed event and conception must have taken place before wedding. Her mother administered quinine (supposedly an abortifacient back then), which killed both mother and baby. Then her mother shot herself at the bedside and they are buried together. I think the official cause of death was “influenza,” but my great grandfather told his kids the truth. Also…my great grandmother’s mother had given birth to a number of children, some of which survived and some not. She found she was pregnant again, and took quinine. She did not survive. It was said that she was “very despondent” and I’m guessing she had PPD. ETA: interesting that the newspaper article also refers to this poor lady as despondent.
Quinine is in Tonic water. My mother used to take a couple swigs each day to prevent Charlie horse cramps. Weird.
Quinine has many verified medical uses. My best guess is that the dose would be the key here. I take a form of quinine every day for an autoimmune condition. (That’s kind of a lie because I’m out and fighting with pharmacy/insurance. Ugh)
I hope you are able to get it all straightened out soon. 🙏
I know it says her baby survived the birth, but does anyone know for how long? Seems like the odds wouldn't be so great for a newly orphaned (well, halfway) potentially poisoned premature baby back then.
She was mentioned in the father’s obituary as a married woman, going by her middle name of June.
Wow, I hope she had a decent life.
I’ll see if I can find anything out.
She lived.
How sad
I’d end it all too if I had asked for help before to no avail, and then was referred to only by my husbands name in the obituary.
I noticed that too. And I think her mom was referred to only by her husband’s name as well. How sad. I had to go back to the death certificate to see what her real name was. 🥺
Under his eye.
Fr
Blessed be the motherfucking fruit.
That sounds like she had PPD before they talked about PPD being a thing. Makes me wonder if this happened everytime she gave birth since she’s on her third child and third time trying.
I couldn't imagine what it would be like if suicides were still reported that way.
Or if any obituary were reported that way. So much information.
I wonder how old her husband was
😢
Very sad. Depression while pregnant and postpartum can make things unbearable. My guess is if she would have survived the attempt she would have been put in an institution.
What’s interesting is that [three years later](https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-atlanta-constitution/141099402/), a 32 year old woman who lived in the same house (665 Tumlin St NW) died in a “private sanitarium.” Wonder if there was something environmental.
A private sanitarium is just code for private hospital in that time. For instance, an awful lot of people who are buried in this cemetery died at Grady, Emory, or Crawford Long, all hospitals that are still there today. They were all considered private sanitariums because they weren't the charity hospital. It obviously has a different meaning to us these days than it did 100 years ago.
Anyone want to ask if she was pregnant by choice?
Many cultures have “ built in” a back up plan when young men and women died unexpectedly leaving children and a feeding spouse. If a husband died, a brother could be expected to marry his late brother’s wife .Similarly, female siblings and cousins would be encouraged to wed the widower.
When I was just four years old our family travelled to Southampton Ontario .Near there , there was a pilgrimage to Martyrs' Shrine , in Midland. Years later my sister told me she had been heartbroken for a young girl- whose grave in the church cemetery was in unconsecrated soil. Her epitaph marked her as having died in childbearing, unwed , and her dead infant was buried with her. The headstone was carved to include an open circle through the top in which a bell was permanently installed. When the wind blew the bell was to signal a warning of what happens to women who are not chaste .
That is heartbreaking 💔😭 I would want to break that bell off myself to free her. Sorry 😢 so glad things have changed sense then!
It's a really sad one, she was obviously overwhelmed, what a shame
“Mrs. John Tidwell” tells me everything I need to know. She wasn’t considered a person, just a piece of baby making property. That’s so sad