i have found the problem.  this only goes wrong when i am in the class constructor.
//*****************************************************************************
// public:
//*****************************************************************************
CdIndexDirData::CdIndexDirData()
    : QObject()
{
    m_Parent = NULL;
    m_Children.setAutoDelete(true);
    m_Contents.setAutoDelete(true);
}
this is how i structure constructors for derived classes.  i presume the problem is triggered by the ": Object()" line.
*experiments*
doh!
if i edit the code to put ": Object()" on the same line as the function definition the HCB still looses the class members 
i have quit and reloaded the IDE already, which didn't help.  also telling VAX to re-parse the cpp file isn't making any difference either.