Doctor Lupardi

I made friends with all my neighbors by now. We exchanged recipes with one another; our children were all friends. The supervisor called my husband one day. He said that he had a brother with two children. They had sold their home and they needed a place to live until they built a new home. He wanted them to live with us for a few months. We couldn't refuse them since they had two small children.

They made a lot of noise. It made me nervous. The woman would cook on my stove, but never cleaned. She had a little dining room for themselves and two bedrooms. Every time I nursed my baby her children would be crying or jumping. I lost my milk, so the doctor said that I would have to give the baby a bottle. One day while I was giving Tony a bottle, his body started to jump and he foamed at the mouth. He was acting as though he was going to die.

I called for the woman, Josephine, to help. She ran down to my husband and told my husband to call for a doctor right away. My husband came home. The doctor was there in no time. He stripped my baby and dropped him in a pan of mustard water. Then he examined him thoroughly. He said that the milk had spoiled and my baby had ptomaine poisoning. Tony went into spells on and off, without our knowing when it would happen. This condition lasted for two years. When he went into a spell I would go to pieces. My husband gave me a large cow bell. Whenever I needed help, I would ring the cow bell and Tony would run home. He would get a pan of warm water, put mustard in it and then lay our baby in it for about ten minutes. I could get my husband because he worked right next to the house. Tony's spells came farther and farther apart. After two years, he didn't get them any more.

The supervisor called my husband again and asked if his brother could keep living in with us. My husband said, “No! Either I move or he moves.” My husband was a foreman, so we ended up staying.

My husband was very good in times of distress. I often used to say that he inherited it from his mother. He could have become a doctor if they had the money to send him to school. He helped many families when something occurred. He had the know how of many different things.

Everyone called him Doctor Lupardi. When the neighborhood children strained their wrists or ankles, they wouldn't go to the doctor or their parents. They came to my husband to take care of them. In most cases he did a good job.

When Tony, my second baby, was eight months old I got pregnant again for the third time. John was 27 months old but a very good baby and very strong, God bless him. He stopped using diapers at two years old. That was a big help. John would take two large empty boxes and go in and out of them. I would give him a little old pan and spoon. He would entertain himself for hours.

Tony was very thin and still getting his spells. They took a lot out of me, but I loved him very much. He was a pretty baby. He looked a lot like my father and my youngest brother Nick. I still dressed him in little baby dresses. He looked adorable.

I continued getting the pains in my chest and shoulders. One day my husband took me to a specialist for an examination. I asked the doctor if I had these pains when my third baby was being born would I die. I was so frightened, I asked him if I should have an abortion.

He said, “No, your shouldn't have an abortion, because your uterus and tubes are healthy. You will not die if you get the pains when your baby is being born. You just will be very uncomfortable.” Then I felt better about the whole thing. It gave me courage to carry on. He also told me that, one out of one hundred, if it was a little girl, the pains might leave me.