In the 1950s, the doctor told my Grandma if she didn't start taking medicine she would have to go to the hospital. He thought she would be afraid to go to the hospital since she had never been to one. Doctors in those days made house calls and babies were born at home, so she had never needed to go. However, when he came back the next week, Grandma had her bags packed. She went to the hospital and they told her they had to have the room for somebody else.
Grandma had high blood pressure and the doctor told her she should eat less salt. I remember her sitting on the porch rubbing the salt off of the Fritos with a Kleenex and eating them. I thought how silly that was when I saw it.
They didn't have antibiotics until the 1950s, so at that time when someone was sick, they were quarantined so they didn't spread it around. That's why Daddy had the chicken pox when Bobby Joe and I did in the '50s. Aunt Oakie had it when she was 60. When she was sick when she was in high school in the '20s, she was the same age as one of the doctor's sisters. It was the doctor who made house calls and when he got there, he let on like she would have been at the school graduation parties if she hadn't been sick. As it was, she didn't go to the parties.
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