None of Theresa’s children escaped her ‘teachings’. However, her attention was centred mostly on her older daughters, Sheila and Suesan. She didn’t like how pretty they were getting. She didn’t like how much attention this beauty might attract. Attention that might be diverted away from her. Theresa didn’t like that. Not one bit.
Surviving childhood was an achievement in itself in the early 1900s. Any number of illnesses periodically threatened to snatch away little ones at random. Parisian Jeanne Weber knew this well. A couple of these random illnesses had already taken her two youngest children by early 1905.
Martha Needle wanted nothing more than to be happy. You know, the kind of happiness that comes with a marriage and children. She had known that happiness when she had been married to her husband Henry Needle. Unfortunately it was not to be. Martha found herself burying not only her husband after he succumbed to a short illness, but also her three small children who became ill and died in quick succession.
