The Women Who Mattered at our Bedok kampong house

For the first generation of our family at our Bedok kampong house (encompassing the years prior to and leading up to the 1950’s), the traditional idea of “men manage outside, women manage inside” holds true for our household and the extended families it encompasses.

The womenfolk, while managing the house and all its matters, also interact within the siblings’ structures, especially if they are sisters and at times, when circumstances call for it, also among the wives themselves. For our paternal grandmother, having a good relationship with her siblings was key to the eventual closeness we have within our current generation #2 and #3 of siblings, cousins and second cousins as the years go by.

In this circa 1946 portrait photo (thanks to our second cousin Irene who provided this), we can see our grandma (she is Sis#2) with her two sisters and some of their biological and adopted children (not all children including our father are in this photo). Interactions were frequent as well when many lived in proximity to each other at Kampong Soopoo (former Kallang/Lavender area) prior to the move to Bedok.

Mama Blakang (Mdm Oh) is also in this photo, one of the other wives of our paternal grandfather who also lived with our grandma in the same house at Kampong Soopoo and later at Bedok and got along well with each other but without having any children of her own.

Because of this social fabric made possible by these layers of familial ties, we brothers would have, not only our direct paternal aunts and their families living in the same house with us, but also a first cousin who is the grandchild of yet another wife, along with an uncle who was the nephew of our grandmother – all staying under the same Bedok kampong house roof.