Charles was born unexpectedly to Charles and Sylvia Hannah on the 3rd of November 1946. Doctors had failed to recognise the presence of twins throughout the pregnancy and right up until delivery.
Sylvia writes of the time in her memoirs:-
“After a few months I became pregnant and had the most awful morning sickness. I saw the local doctor and booked into a small private hospital “Inch Neuk” at Parramatta, this being the way confinements were handled then.
“A week or so before my time was due the skin on my abdomen felt it could not stretch another fraction without splitting, and I asked the doctor for help. “Rub some olive oil into the skin. It will be alright when the baby comes.”
“It was a long labour, from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon. The doctor examined me again, early on the Sunday morning and gravefaced called the sister out of the labor ward. I knew something was very wrong, and thought my baby had died, because the movements were quiet. At 11 am. I was given an anaesthetic, just as the church bells were ringing around Parramatta for the morning services, and I wondered if I was on my way to heaven. There were beautiful blue jacarandas in bloom outside. Some time later I was brought to, and put off again, that must have been when Robert was born, but I was not told. Then again I was brought around, and told to push hard. At 4 pm. I became conscious. The sister said I had twin boys, but that the second one had been christened before he was born as he was not expected to be born alive. She had worked on him for three quarters of an hour to start his breathing properly. Two other babies were lost in the time I was at that hospital. Confinements were still fraught with danger.
“Our twins were identical with soft auburn curls, and they weighed just on 13 lbs. Robert Stanley was 6lb 8 oz and Charles John 6lb 5oz. They had been born with instruments and tufty bits of cotton wool covered the marks.
“They were born on the 3rd November 1946, and the first day had been exciting as well as an anxious one, and Charles quickly told our family and friends. He had only been allowed to see me briefly on the Saturday. Men were not part of the birthing procedure and were kept away. They were permitted visiting hours when the confinements were over, and it happened to be Melbourne Cup week. We girls gave our husbands horse names, likening their bursting through the door at 7 pm. en masse, when the starched sister opened it, to the start of the famous race.
“We were privileged to be parents of twins. It was totally unexpected by us, and evidently by the doctor also. How he could have explained my large abdomen without testing for two heart beats, I cannot say. He had the reputation for being a good doctor, and I thought him so. He may have called in a specialist for the delivery when it became complicated, but he never said so.
“Our excitement about the twins was almost completely happy. There was the niggling doubt the little twin would not make it, but we prayed and thought positively about him. “Where did the twins come from? Whose side of the family?” “Well, Grandfather Scaysbrook was a twin –“. “Where did the red hair come from?” “Well — my father’s side had chestnut coloured hair. Charles’ Aunt Nan is a red-head, too!”
“The little fellow didn’t become strong in the way Robert was, and they spoke of sending him to Crown Street Women’s Hospital, in Sydney. A few days later Sister told me he had died. He was four or five days old and I grieved for him. The funeral directors Charles Innes arranged for the interment of his tiny body at Rookwood Cemetery.”
Quotation from “The Gentle Years, by Sylvia Hannah”
Charles was interred at Rookwood Cemetery in a common plot for stillborns and infants (Plot: Independent General D_Zone F/#/1735)
Some are born for a few days, others ninety years. While sometimes we don’t understand the reasons why, we know that you brought joy while you were with us, and then you were taken to a greater joy.
“He has made everything beautiful and appropriate in its time. He has also planted eternity [a sense of divine purpose] in the human heart [a mysterious longing which nothing under the sun can satisfy, except God]—yet man cannot find out (comprehend, grasp) what God has done (His overall plan) from the beginning to the end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 Amplified Bible)
Although I didn’t get to know my big brother in this life, I look forward to meeting him in the future.
Last updated August 2021, Bruce Hannah
