Grandma D's Teeth

My father's mother had no teeth. It was just one of the things I knew about her — no big deal. We joked that she gummed her food to death.

But we also knew that she had no teeth by the time she was 25 years old. Of course, as children, we thought that was plenty old to lose your teeth.

D was born in 1910, which means she had no teeth left by around 1935, when my father was about 4 years old. That was mid-Great Depression. I think this was about the same time my grandfather was off working in the Civilian Conservation Corps, so that tells you something about how they were doing financially.

Her 29-year-old mother had died when D was only 10, in 1921, of quinsy. I believe D had a stepmother during most of her preteen and teen years. Maybe she had no dental care, and had cavities, so her teeth literally rotted out of her head and had to be pulled, one by one, because it was cheaper than dealing with the underlying cause.

Her father was a cantankerous man who was an engineer on the local railroad. He was a World War I veteran. He married, divorced, married, and even remarried several times. I don't know that he didn't provide, but I can imagine that he wasn't attentive to his child's needs, either. He later took his own life. 

Conversely, I know my mom's family went to a dentist because her mother mentioned it a lot in the journal she kept. That family was not well off either, but had a bit more money, especially earlier on in the Depression years.  

I just realized I wrote about some of this eight and a half years ago, but I wasn't thinking quite as much about the financial circumstances of my family members. I wish I knew more about how Grandma D came to have no teeth.