Hi there Rosina, Pt I (as my reply exceeds sizing capacity, to be cont'd)
Many thanks for your response to my post, and I apologise for the delay in getting back to you. I sense and can fully understand your interest and thirst for any info relating to your mother's time at the Assisi home, and what Teresa was likely to have experienced there. My heart goes out to you, and to all others who are similarly left still wondering about the environment of their births and how Assisi was run. This is likely to be a lengthy reply, and I know would be better-suited to PM.
But not to keep you waiting any longer in relation to your mother, I'm truly sorry that I can't put a face to the name, but neither can I to anyone there specifically. Having stayed somewhat briefly on both occasions, I hadn't formed any bonds, but I certainly wish I had known your mother. The name Teresa does ring a bell from my time there, although I honestly can't remember whether it was attributable to one or more of my co-sharers, or to one of the sisters. Dependent upon the timing of your own due date of birth in November (i.e. based on the norm of 6 weeks' residence prior to giving birth until 6 weeks afterwards), it's more than probable that we would have met, and is possible that we may even have shared the same cramped bedroom in the Annex, as my son was also born in the November (at the very end). This was a tad ahead of my estimated due December date though, and by then, had already entered an alternative London M&B home roughly two weeks beforehand then 3 days in a nearby hospital. You might perhaps be unaware as to whether your own birth date was more or less to schedule or otherwise though? How my subsequent arrangements had been made in the short time available, escapes me too, as we didn't even have a telephone at home for some years' hence.
As far as sleeping arrangements were concerned, I was not aware of any girls occupying single rooms, or of there being any option to have one for sole occupancy, other than those of the Sisters. I couldn't describe the room I shared with two others as a dormitory, because the Annex in which we were quartered was a small room in a smallish cottage, 2 bedrooms upstairs with a bathroom between, all of which led off a narrow passageway to one side of the house. On the ground floor was a sitting room, where we few occupants sat of an evening, and a form of utility area (this probably also housed the boiler for maintenance as was referred to on site). At that stage, we were segregated in relation to prenatal & postnatal girls, and I suspect this divisive arrangement kept circulation of some stories to a minimum within our small community, to a certain extent. The only occasions on which I caught sight of any babies, were if a couple of the prams had been left on the driveway in front of the main house in dry, milder weather, more notably during my initial stay from end-September. I'm aware this sounds alarming in the present day climate of potential kidnappings and non-gated properties, and with optimism, assume the babes' safety was somehow closely-monitored from within at all times.
My failure in not having adequately absorbed conversations, names, numbers and arrangements back then, I attribute to my youth's lack of rationality (and frontal cortex - is it not at around one's mid-twenties they now know that the brain fully-develops
). By this stage, such details from Assisi are a blur, as well as the standard & type of food served, whereas today I'd automatically make a mental note of them, whilst some other aspects remain clear. I'm not sure that I even met all the girls though, because as I said, we were separated with regard to living quarters, went in different directions of a daytime to carry out the cheap labour we provided, and I think we ate on a 2-tier basis as long as I was there. Neither did twice-daily Mass seem to bring us all together at any one time, possibly due to the various duties carried out. Knowing hindsight to be a wonderful thing, had I only kept a diary of impressions as they were gleaned, those now-elusive details could have been so helpful to you. It's ironic how 54 years' later, one also tends to blame vagueness upon age - yet at polar opposites. But what is often perceived as reticence on behalf of many to share experiences of the home, could be partially due to their fading recollections of their very young Assisi days, even relatively shortly afterwards, coupled with an overwhelming wish to shut out unpleasant memories of what it held, although they definitely kept us in the dark about any events.
