Katie Barran

Nanee Kitty as I remember lived in Palmyra but she came at frequent intervals, like once every 3 or 4 months, to spend time at our house with her daughter, Bernice, my mom.

I remember she helped to groom us by scrubbing with coconut husks and the floor brush then oiling our skins with the freshly made Coconut Oil. This was raw punishment; the scrubbing I mean. At this time of our family life there were only 3 children: myself, Babs, and Bo. So we felt the brunt of the scrubbing.

Nanee must have been in her forties then.

At our house sometimes, suddenly she would flop on the ground with her "FITS" now known as Epilepsy. She bit her tongue many times, as is always the complication, and bled profusely from the bitten tongue. The poor girl must have had so much pain afterwards and, therefore, could not eat very well. She must had had some altered level of consciousness afterwards because I remember clearly everyone thought she was "mad" and then they took her the the "Mad House" or Mental Asylum and left her there for a few days. She was later discharged and sent home. God knows if they rendered electro-shock therapy to her. But she was always in a daze for a few days, then would be back to her normal self. How crudely they treated patients with Epilepsy and I guess the family did not know what else to do. She suffered so much from these attacks but I do not remember if she took and meds for this. The doctors most likely did not know how to treat this condition and she was left to suffer.

IMMIGRATION HISTORY: I'm not sure if she directly immigrated from India to Guyana but I never her speak Hindi. Her family lived in Palmyra, Berbice.

RACE: Asian Indian

LANGUAGE: English

NATIONALITY: Indo-Guyanese

OCCUPATION: Housewife

EDUCATION: Unknown

NUMBER OF CHILDREN: 9

MARITAL STATUS: Married to James Mole Barran

DATE OF MARRIAGE: Unknown

CLASS: Middle

RELIGION: Protestant Anglican

DATE OF DEATH: Unknown

Added By Jean Ramjit