Thank you for sharing this.
What happened to “old people” prior to nursing homes? Did they just die younger?
That is long before my time and I am not young.
I recall a early memory ~ 6 or 7 a great aunt, my Grandfathers sister never married ~ 70, developed some condition where she couldn't take care of herself (Osteoporosis I think ) and her brothers emptied her house out and sold everything and put her in a nursing home where we visited her.
She was one of four. Her three brothers wives certainly were not going to play nurses aid to her, I know my grandmother wouldnt.
More recently my uncle had a real bad stroke and his wife about 15 years younger did get him out of a nursing home after a year and took care of him at home. It saved them money and he would have died much sooner in that nursing home of neglect.