General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I just watched this PBS Special on line about the 1918 influenza outbreak.... [View all]frazzled
(18,402 posts)episode this season, hitting the upstairs and downstairs folk with no discrimination. It seems as if people at that time really couldn't get a break: the Great War took so many lives and affected so many families, and then, bam, they got hit with a massive influenza epidemic that tore apart families even further.
But no, in my personal experience, I don't recall my grandparents (born in the late 1890s) being standoffish or non-demonstrative with hugs at all. I can recall my paternal grandfather always sitting us on his knees as small children, and then doing that awful thing that grandparents do--blowing into your belly with a loud sound. And I recall the loving hugs from my maternal grandmother.
Perhaps it's that all my relatives were Eastern European immigrants, peasants really. It's a fairly touchy, feely group.