Posted by John Wilson on May 17, 2003 at 11:52:44 from 203.96.58.8 user hugo.
Well as the likely cause of death of Bob Blackett (Great War, Flu epidemic, Strike) has been exhaustively discussed, how about the other orphans in the books?
Jim & Mary Turner were bought up by the GA Maria Turner, so what happened to their parents? Or perhaps just their mother, as I don’t suppose there were many solo fathers bringing up children then. Though perhaps solo fathers could send children off to boarding school when they were old enough.
If Bob, Jim & Mary were 12-15 when they ascended the Matterhorn in 1900 they would have been born in the 1880s. Perhaps their parents died in a terrible coach or rail accident. Or drowned at sea. Or, like Prince Albert, got typhoid from polluted water? They did not need a war or an epidemic to die; neither of course did Bob Blackett.
Also the Farland twins Port & Starboard. They had a father with a housekeeper, but were raised when younger by Mrs Dudgeon with Tom. Death through complications soon after childbirth seems likely.
Both my Random House and Macquarie Dictionaries say for “orphan”
“ a child who has lost both parents through death, or less commonly, one parent”.