Character Study for Family History
[I have spent hours reading the diary of my Great Aunt Dora. The story begins all full of the hopes of a young 18-year-old first-generation Australian girl whose parents had migrated from Germany to South Australia around 1877. I know her story, I knew and loved my great Aunt Dora. She will never marry. One of many women of her time, when, after World War 1, there were not enough men to go around. I imagine this is what life in the 1920’s was like for her, a maiden aunt caring for her parents.]
Dora
She had one once. Before the war.
He came from Hamburg. A distant relative from the family.
But the Great War intruded. He was the enemy.
Interned. Never to return.
She perched on the bench in the Royal Botanical Gardens. Watching. Men promenading in pale pinstriped suits, on their arms women in their frilly-white Sunday best, giggling.
Easy for the men, she thought. Pick and choose. Pick and choose. Even the damaged men, the cripples, have a chance.
She sniffed.
What about me? Is that my future? Caring for my aging parents? No choice but to be an old maid?
this is beautiful
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Thank you.
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