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Pharmacy owners, 19th century

Terra

Senior Registered
Impressions of this past life below are again all from the regressions almost five years ago. In the gap between then and now either none came to me because I had so much other things on my mind (and I believe you have to be open for the impressions to come) or I let them slide for the same reason.
To keep them genuine, free of any 'inventions' I might come up with while posting them, I'll post them word-by-word as they were written down in my journal on the day they came to me.

- A small town of the 'Wild West' sort. The main street is basically a wide dirt road with big houses on both sides, there are children playing, people walking by, they greet me as they pass. The street off the main one is where my home is. On the corner where those two join is a big 'establishment' of some sort. Could be a tavern. (While I said that I will refrain from commentary in this, I have to mention that I've always had Virginia associated for a location)

- Scene of violence. (That's all that I have written down, and I'm not sure I remember what exactly it was. Again, I don't want to invent stuff, but I get a feeling it was a fist fight in the street)

- I'm a young girl perhaps named Katrina*, possibly 18, dressed in a black/dark blue simple dress with white apron. My father smokes a tobacco-pipe. Mother wears a kerchief on her head, she is very thin, looks exhausted from hard work. Younger sister, possibly 16, is blonde, for some reason restlesness associates with her.

- Me and my older brother work in father's pharmacy. I get impressions of a couple of clients, first is a very old woman, then a young man, with whom I flirt a bit and get teased by my brother because of that.

- There's a commotion of some sort outside. I stay in the pharmacy, my brother grabs a rifle and runs off. There's a definite sense of panic.


*Though I wrote it down as it is in my journal, while reading this few days ago I got a feeling that it's not quite right. I said the name to myself few times, then few variations (Carina, Carrie-Anne to name a few) and finally found one that stuck - Catriona/Katriona. Somehow I knew that it was either Scottish or Irish and a simple check proved that right.

What puzzles me on this life is the nature of the aforementioned commotion. I wonder if town raids by gangs were common enough for a pharmacist to keep a gun and jump into action whenever it occured. I also wonder how come me and my brother could have worked in a pharmacy. Didn't it require many years of preparation and learning about the pharmaceuticals? After all it's not like running a simple shop.
 
My impression of those sorts of western towns is that just about every family had a gun for their own safety. It doesn't surprise me in the least that a pharmacist would have one.


Also, depending on the date, a pharmacy could have been considered a family business, where the son would learn by apprenticing with his father, rather than attending school for it.
 
While I am not an expert, I would also add that I suspect pharmacies in the 19th century kept drugs that people liked to steal (just as they do now) even if no prescription was needed to purchase the drugs money was, and the 20th and 21st centuries do not have a monopoly on drug abuse. For that reason I would not be surprised with a Pharmacy owner keeping a gun.


As to the second point, I agree with Lady of Shalott about apprenticing. I am not a pharmacist and do not know their history in the US, but I am an attorney and do know that the first law schools in the US were opened in the 1880s and after and the idea of licensing and other governmental regulation came even after that. Before that to become an attorney a person learned by working for an attorney (while the word apprentice was not used - I believe it was called "reading" the concept is the same. Therefore I suspect that the same was true for pharmacist.
 
19th century, 'Wild West' type, and Virginia don't really go together. If you are firm about Virginia as the place, then I suspect that it was much earlier than the 1800s. The terms "rifle" and "kerchief" would then become a problem with this dating. Can you describe the kerchief? Perhaps a musket was used instead of a rifle?
 
Could Virginia be the name of the town? Other possibilities are maybe your family had moved from Virginia or had relatives there that you had been keeping in touch with so the state of Virginia could have been a regular part of the conversation or maybe the family was planning a move back to Virginia. Just throwing around possibilities.


Most families in those days had a rifle whether you owned a business or not. Also about the business... even if there were laws prohibiting kids from working in the family business, in the west there wasn't always much law enforcement and if there was would they even care. If the shop owner had to run with a firearm to help with something outside that would indicate that there probably wasn't.


Editing in: I did an extremely quick google search and there was Virginia City, Nevada and Virginia City, Montana in the 19th century...my hunch is there are probably many more with a similar name.
 
Hi Terra! Thanks for sharing your memories with us!


I agree with Alexnovo, I think in those old days professions were learned in this way. So it would be perfectly natural for you to work at a pharmacy without any previous studies other than your employers' instructions and shared lore.


Yes, Katriona would definetely be scottish, I think.


I believe you have a significant amount of information there already. Have you had any regressions recently?


Something that has worked for me is to keep records in a journal in a matter-of-fact way, just as you have, and then write "around" it in a separate document. While I am somehow making up a story around the "facts", sometimes I get "sucked" into directions that lead me to fill in some of the blanks, step by step... and it's fun too! :)


There's a good thread on writing techniques - it's really interesting, if you haven't read it. I'd be very interested in how you feel about this!
 
Thanks to you all for the input. I hadn't realized that it was common for families to own guns back then for their own safety or that even something as specific as running a pharmacy didn't require a special training, other than being taught by a family member.

Blueheart said:
19th century, 'Wild West' type, and Virginia don't really go together. If you are firm about Virginia as the place, then I suspect that it was much earlier than the 1800s. The terms "rifle" and "kerchief" would then become a problem with this dating. Can you describe the kerchief? Perhaps a musket was used instead of a rifle?
'Wild west type' was the general impression I got and I agree that the term wasn't used correctly. I'm not that familiar with American history to really see the deifferences between, say, 18th and 19th century. Neither I'm very familiar with guns, so I used to the word 'rifle' in a generic sense, as in that it wasn't a smaller gun, like pistol. I'm looking at pictures of muskets right now and I suppose it could have been one.


Virginia, on the other hand, just sprung to my mind without any idea what it might refer too. As the others mentioned, it could have been a town/city, not necessarily the state. I suppose it could have been a name too, but my intuition tells me it's a location. As for the century, while 19th is the first that came to my mind, lately I've been leaning towards earlier times too.


Kerchief my mother wore looked like this http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/Kerchief_(PSF).png What I figured after some browsing online about this particular headdress is that it's rather an ethnic thing. I couldn't find if it was worn by Irish/Scottish women, though.

W.A. HEART said:
Hi Terra! Thanks for sharing your memories with us!
I believe you have a significant amount of information there already. Have you had any regressions recently?
Not yet. I wasn't feeling well this week, and I thought it unwise to tax myself more. I'm planning to have another one next week whenever I get some time.

W.A. HEART said:
Hi Terra! Thanks for sharing your memories with us!
Something that has worked for me is to keep records in a journal in a matter-of-fact way, just as you have, and then write "around" it in a separate document. While I am somehow making up a story around the "facts", sometimes I get "sucked" into directions that lead me to fill in some of the blanks, step by step... and it's fun too! :)


There's a good thread on writing techniques - it's really interesting, if you haven't read it. I'd be very interested in how you feel about this!
Thanks for the advice, W.A. Heart! I'll try the same technique you use as I always come up with things relating to the actual memories whether it would be guesses or actual memory. I've only skimmed through the thread now but I'll definitely read it. Sounds like it will be helpful.
 
I tried regressing myself to this particular life again today and while I'm not sure how genuine some of the impressions were, some of them felt rather real. Unfortunately, this regression was interrupted midway through, so I'm planning on returning to it tomorrow again.


This time I focussed on the memory I already mentioned where my brother runs off with a gun in his hand due to some commotion outside and despite the directions in the CD I remained there the entire time. I saw myself hesitating a bit, then following him outside. It's a blur what's really going on but there was definitely a lot of people in the street, much noise and general feel of panic. I'm not sure but I get a feeling that there were many men on horses. I know I was pushed aside roughly by some of them entering the pharmacy, so I tried to back away into the street. That was when someone shot me in the stomach.


Thankfully, I didn't experience the pain of it during this regression, though throughout the day after the regression I'd pause and touch the spot where the bullet hit me and replay the memory. Something about it felt all too familiar, how I tried pressing my palm hard against the wound to stop the bleeding and to keep the dirt of the ground away from it when I fell down. I remembered crawling away from the street in a fear to be trampled by attackers. Once out of the harm's way (I felt I was more afraid of being trampled and possibly didn't realize all too well that I already had a fatal injury) I thought about my brother and if he was okay, regretting having separated with him. That's when the memory ended.


All these details make this particular memory rather believable, I think. My reaction or rather lack of it to such a grave injury sounds likely for someone in shock, so it's possible that I didn't feel any pain then either. I've heard of such thing happening. I just wonder if I came out of it and realized I was dying before it happenned. That's a scary thought...
 
Those are some vivid memories! You are brave, I think, to do a regression around such scary moments. :thumbsup:I haven't been brave enough yet to do that.
 
Hey Terra! Great job! :thumbsup:


I totally agree with Alaska, you were really brave to go back to that moment - I can only guess how terrifying it must have felt.


Don't forget to record all that in detail! :D

Terra said:
My reaction or rather lack of it to such a grave injury sounds likely for someone in shock, so it's possible that I didn't feel any pain then either. I've heard of such thing happening. I just wonder if I came out of it and realized I was dying before it happenned.
Yes, I too have heard people that had been shot say that they didn't feel any pain at first.


I am curious as to what you mean when you wonder if you came out of it and realised you were dying before it happened - do you feel you were somehow aware of it? I have no particular memories of dying, and I sometimes ask myself why...
 
W.A. HEART said:
I am curious as to what you mean when you wonder if you came out of it and realised you were dying before it happened - do you feel you were somehow aware of it? I have no particular memories of dying, and I sometimes ask myself why...
I mean that it felt that in my shock I didn't realize I was dying at all. I just wondered if I remained in this state until I lost consciousness. Somehow it feels like a much preferable, more peaceful way to go in such a situation. I didn't get to see until the end, so really it could have been both ways.


I wasn't frightened during this regression, which is strange, considering how afraid I am of death inthis life. In other circumstances this lack of emotion would make me doubt the memory, but somehow I just know it's real. The impressions are very vivid and familiar, and now a couple days after this emotions are starting to kick in.


What haunts me the most is the thought that I got separated from my "brother". I'm using commas because after the regression another feeling I got was that he might not have been after all. Possibly someone who was around for a long time, maybe an adopted son of my parents or a trainee in the pharmacy. Either that or he was a soulmate which could explain too why I feel I had known him for a long time before my death in that life. I know I was very attached to him, which could possibly mean romantic involvement between us. But then again I have problems discerning between platonic and romantic feelings now, so I'm going to leave this one hanging for now.
 
A lack of emotion may also have to do with the physical state of shock that your body was in.


I have one memory of being shot and killed as a child in a jungle war. I don't remember any pain and I think I was killed instantly. I remember the shot "popped" me out of my body and I fell face forward, instantly still. It doesn't seem scary to me at all, even reliving that in dreams. Perhaps because there was no pain and it was so fast. I popped out of my body and floated ahead, where my brother was running through the jungle. That's all I have ever remembered, although I remember what happened leading up to being shot.
 
A lack of emotion may also have to do with the physical state of shock that your body was in.
Lack of emotion during memories of some supposedly very emotionally-charged moments of my past-lives always troubled me, especially when seeing it always listed as one of the main factors when determining whether the memory is genuine. However, when I remember either especially happy or sad memories even of this life, I don't get as emotionally invested in them as I did back then (and sometimes even then it could have taken time for the emotions to kick in so to speak). I'm touched, certainly, but it's not as deep since I'm not all that emotional. I suppose the emotion factor depends then on the person in question too.


I get my confirmations by the undeniable feeling of the familiarity with the situation. In one of the regressions I had a fleeting memory of me standing in front of my, supposedly brother, when the name 'Jeffrey' (I'm not ruling out a possibility of it being another variation of it - Geoffrey, Jeffery, etc.) sprung to my mind. Again it's not a name I've run into recently while reading or writing, nor on TV or films. Since then I'd repeat the name to myself every once in a while and it feels to have been utterred so many times that it's as familiar as names of my closest friends or family in this life.


Another flashback I had during that regression was a typical getting ready for dinner moment, with dishes clattering, dressing up and so on. I particularly remember adjusting my dress in front of a mirror and my sister running past the door to my room, screaming at the top of her lungs that "Jeffrey's here". I can tell she's excited, and so I am. His relation to me and my family still remains unclear, though. I'm quite sure he's important, though the memories are too few to even begin judging who he might be (if he even is) in my current life.
 
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