# Wow. Kids Dying in the Old Days **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 11, 2021, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463 "2021-08-11T17:28:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2021, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/41 "2021-08-12T04:58:18Z")
Ah, I forgot about Arabella, that’s right! ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2021, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/42 "2021-08-12T05:57:47Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > How would the parents refer to the late child when talking to each other? “Prejohnny” ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2021, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/43 "2021-08-12T06:14:39Z")
My grandmother’s older sister died a few weeks before she was born. Diphtheria. When my grandmother was 7 she had it. She survived since Sulla drugs had been invented in the meantime. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2021, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/44 "2021-08-12T09:25:40Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > Someone mentioned Bach and his 10 dead kids up thread. I don’t know who he was trying to name a child after but he named 3 of his daughters Christiana and a son Christian in the attempt. > > On the other hand, he also named 5 sons Johann, and 3 of them lived (plus a daughter Johanna), so… His last son Johann Christian not only survived but went on to become an extremely successful composer in his own right. So it worked eventually. > [@nelliebly](#): > > In doing genealogical research, I’ve found many families that named subsequent children after a child who’d died. I don’t know if it was a way to honor the deceased child, a means of honoring the family member the dead child was named after, or merely a way to comfort oneself with the thought , “Here we have little Timmy again.” I know it’s tasteless but now all I can think about is _Dinosaurs_ and “We’re gonna need another Timmy!”. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2021, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/45 "2021-08-12T10:00:55Z")
Lolita the First. Then there was my mother, then Lolita aka Lolita the Second. We have one of those fancy lastnames that some people believe to be made up and others assume to mean nobility, and these second group tend to think more in terms of “grandee of Spain” than “village lord”. Someone once asked my brother “oh, wouldn’t you have liked to live in the Middle Ages and be a great lord?” “… … … in the Middle Ages I would have died at age 3, of pulmonia. That’s assuming my parents had met (unlikely) and that my mother would have survived her own childhood pulmonia, which her older sister didn’t and Mom barely. Sorry, what was the question?” ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Mark\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2021, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/46 "2021-08-12T12:05:19Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](#): > > Kennedy lost two babies. I went to Wikipedia to check on a book I read that said JFK had four children and I thought he only had three. Turns out his first child with Jackie was a daughter named Arabella. She died on the day she was born. Jackie Kennedy had [five pregnancies](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jackie-kennedys-five-pregnancies_b_4273416). Two lived to adulthood. ---
**Author:** ![FrenchDunadan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frenchdunadan/32/5449_2.png) [@FrenchDunadan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FrenchDunadan)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2021, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/47 "2021-08-12T12:08:51Z")
Do you know **Catherine Hubscher** ,? She was the wife of one of Napoleon’s marshall. She had 14 children. Only one reached adulthood. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2021, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/48 "2021-08-12T14:40:38Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > Have they? [90% of autistic children](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/07/140708121527.htm) that die after wandering off between the ages of 1 and 14 drown. I see tons of sad articles about drowned little boys. On the other hand, accidents with horses have dropped dramatically. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2021, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/49 "2021-08-12T15:13:18Z")
Queen Anne of England had seventeen pregnancies - many were stillbirths or miscarriages. Of the five live births (I think, this is from memory - isn’t it funny what trivia sticks in your head), only one survived past his (her?) first birthday. And died before their second. On the other hand George III had fifteen children, of which only two died in childhood. (Charlotte possibly had other miscarriages and stillbirths - at least one where there is a reported pregnancy, but no reported birth - but 15 children in 21 years is a lot). And most of Charlotte’s children lived long healthy lives (their youngest died at 21). ---
**Author:** ![mjmartin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3d9bf3/32.png) [@mjmartin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mjmartin)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2021, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/50 "2021-08-12T15:26:43Z")
My mother lost a daughter at 3 years old in the mid-seventies to cancer. From what I have been told from numerous people, she was never the same person (understandably). I can’t imagine the emotional toll of losing 10+ children and what it must of done to parents at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2021, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/51 "2021-08-12T19:30:55Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > In doing genealogical research, I’ve found many families that named subsequent children after a child who’d died. My wife’s aunt and uncle had two sons, then two daughters, both of whom lived less than a day. The two girls were named Mary and Martha.\* Then they had two daughters who survived and are still living. Their names? Mary and Martha.\* \*Not their real names. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2021, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/52 "2021-08-12T19:33:56Z")
[This](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1040079/life-expectancy-united-states-all-time/) is an interesting site. It lists the life expectancy for America by decade, beginning in 1860. This statement backs up what has been alluded to in this thread: > One of the major reasons for the overall increase of life expectancy in the last two centuries is the fact that the infant and child mortality rates have decreased by so much during this time. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2021, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/53 "2021-08-12T19:39:17Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > There was a grand aunt who dressed her son in dresses and frill up u til he went to school. It turns out there had been a baby girl who didn’t make it. This happened to Ernest Hemingway, as well, though apparently for a different reason – he apparently looked a lot like his older sister Marcelline, and his mother wanted to present the two of them as twins, so when he was little, she dressed him in frilly clothes and kept his hair long. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2021, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/54 "2021-08-12T20:04:53Z")
There’s a term for naming a child for a dead relative: > **[Necronym](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necronym)** > > A necronym (from the Greek words νεκρός, nekros, "dead", and ὄνυμα, ónuma, "name") is the name of or a reference to a person who has died. Many cultures have taboos and traditions associated with referring to the deceased, ranging from at one extreme never again speaking the person's real name, bypassing it often by way of circumlocution, to, at the other end, mass commemoration via naming other things or people after the deceased. > For instance, in some cultures it is common for a newborn child... ## Examples - Composer [Ludwig van Beethoven](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_van_Beethoven), born in 1770, had a brother named Ludwig Maria who was born in 1769 and lived for only six days.[[9]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necronym#cite_note-:0-9) - [Vincent van Gogh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh) had a brother of the same name who was born, and died, on March 30, 1852, exactly one year before the painter’s birth.[[9]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necronym#cite_note-:0-9) - Artist [Salvador Dalí](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Dal%C3%AD) was born nine months and ten days after his brother, also named Salvador, died from gastroenteritis at the age of one year and nine months.[[10]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necronym#cite_note-10) - [NASCAR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASCAR) driver [John Hunter Nemechek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hunter_Nemechek) was named after his uncle [John Nemechek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Nemechek), who died in a crash at [Homestead-Miami Speedway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead-Miami_Speedway) about three months before John Hunter was born.[[11]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necronym#cite_note-11) However I’d say that the name “Johann” in the Bach family was probably a tradition rather than a necronym, with the tradition being to give a child a double name: “Johann Sebastian”, “Johann Christoph”, “Johann Ambrosius” and so on. It’s not like the American custom of first name and middle name; it’s a compound name and both names are equally important. The female equivalent in that tradition is “Maria Antonia”, “Maria Carolina”, “Maria Barbara”, and again these are compound names with the second name just as important as the first. For centuries this was common in Spain, Austria, and Italy, and in France (with “Marie” instead of Maria) ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2021, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/55 "2021-08-12T20:24:12Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > When the accidental death rate seems low, people engage in riskier behavior. So it appears there is a natural balance. It’s like how when the government mandated seatbelts and motorcycle helmets, people felt safer and responded by driving faster. Leading more than one wag to suggest that the best thing we could do for auto safety would be to put a 12" metal spike on the steering wheel aimed right at your heart. Peoole would drive _very_ carefully after that… I would have twin sisters today, but they were born premature in the 1960’s. One died within a few days, and the other lasted a few weeks. By all accounts they both would have survived had they been born a decade or two later. The farm I grew up,on had a little grave plot containing the bodies of a young mother and three of her children, all of whom died of the Spanish flu epidemic in 1918. On the other hand, my grandfather was one of nine children, all of whom lived to a ripe old age save one chain smoker who died of lung cancer in his 50’s. Two of the men made it into their 90’s, and three of the sisters made it to over 100. On my grandmother’s side she had four siblings, and she was the youngest to die at 80. Her twin brother made it to 93, and two of her sisters made it past 100 - one lived on her own in her family house until she was 102, and didn’t even take any medication. She went downhill fast and died a year or so later. There’s lots of variance in those numbers. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2021, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/56 "2021-08-12T20:48:00Z")
Reminds me of a story I read a while back… one man with Rh antibodies had been donating blood for some 60 years, and his plasma is estimated to have saved upwards of two million babies from HDN. ETA: > **[He donated blood every week for 60 years and saved the lives of 2.4 million...](https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/11/health/james-harrison-blood-donor-retires-trnd/index.html)** > > James Harrison was called the man with the golden arm. Every batch of Anti-D that has ever been made in Australia has come from his blood. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2021, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/57 "2021-08-12T21:11:59Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > Have they? [90% of autistic children](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/07/140708121527.htm) that die after wandering off between the ages of 1 and 14 drown. I see tons of sad articles about drowned little boys. That sure sounds like evidence that either drownings have increased dramatically, or that other sorts of accidental deaths have decreased dramatically, and I see no reason to assume that drownings would have increased. Note that that statistic is 90% of the children who died, and says nothing at all about how many go wandering but survive. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2021, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/58 "2021-08-12T21:26:30Z")
> [@mjmartin](#): > > I can’t imagine the emotional toll of losing 10+ children and what it must of done to parents at the time. I don’t know this for certain, obviously, but I could see where, when children often didn’t survive their first X years that the loss of one in that time frame was possibly not as traumatic. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats2)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2021, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/59 "2021-08-12T21:34:50Z")
> [@Folacin](#): > > I don’t know this for certain, obviously, but I could see where, when children often didn’t survive their first X years that the loss of one in that time frame was possibly not as traumatic. It depends on the parent, I would think. In the book I’m reading about Kennedy, when Arabella was stillborn in Newport RI , JFK heard about it while on a yacht in the Mediterranean. He didn’t even want to cut his vacation short to go home to Jackie. His handlers forced him to, telling him his political career would be destroyed if he didn’t go home and support his wife. What a classy guy. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2021, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/60 "2021-08-12T21:54:42Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > There was a grand aunt who dressed her son in dresses and frill up u til he went to school. It turns out there had been a baby girl who didn’t make it. I wonder if we’re related. My great-grandmother did this to my grandfather too, bragging years later about how “cute” he looked in skirts. His older sister died before her first birthday. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463.md?page=4)