2nd Entry Today - Old Photos

When I told the story of my Great-Grandfather and his mysterious death, I mentioned that I had a photo of some of his children.  The photograph is not good quality although we had it enhanced by a professional.  The original is so poor that he did what he could.  Anyway, I am sharing it with you today.

Going by the approximate age of the boy, this picture must either have been taken in 1892 or 1893.  From left to right they are my Grandmother Mary, long time readers will know I did a complete series of postings about her and her house quite early on in my journal.  Next to her at the back is Margaret (she is the daughter that attended the inquest).  Margaret returned to live in Scotland. I have no name of the man she married but I know she had a son George because I met him once when I was about twelve. I have not been able to trace the family.  On the right is the eldest daughter Jessie, she was the one who sadly died at the age of sixteen.  She is holding baby Lilias.  Lilias became a seamstress and married an omnibus driver who had a very similar surname to her own. They had several children.  I used to visit her in Kensington where she and her husband lived in a basement flat and all you could see from the window was legs walking past.  Unfortunately she developed a liking for drink as her father had done.  The boy is Hermon who was named after his father, my Great-Grandfather.  I managed to track Hermon up until 1921, I have a record of his marriage and the birth of four children, then he disappears.  I think he also returned to Scotland. I do know that he was a ship's steward.

The two other children had not yet been born, they were Andrew and Ellen.  Andrew was to die at 35 years of age from tuberculosis a very short time after his only child, a five year old boy also named Hermon after his grandfather, had succumbed to the same disease.  Ellen as I mentioned in the previous entry was brain damaged and spent her life in institutions although she did take holidays with her family. She was very sweet and very childlike and I loved her, everybody did.

Whilst I was getting out the above photograph, I came  across an envelope with assorted odd photos in it.  My mother had cut the photo into a strange shape for some reason, maybe she intended to put it in her locket but never got around to it.   I played about with it and got a reasonable print.  I had not seen it in years and it brought back happy memories.  It is a tiny photo and I had to enlarge it so the quality is not wonderful. This must have been one of our last holidays there, then we started going to the Isle of Wight.

It is myself and my Mother taken at Walton-On-The Naze where many of my childhood holidays were spent.  I was twelve at the time.  The little dog was a red Pekingese.  We called him Chuey although his pedigree name was Yun Chu of....... etc. etc.  He lived to be seventeen.

I also came across a photo of Becky when a teenager but she would certainly tell me off if I posted it here.  It was the days of "big hair" and she also had a brace on her teeth.  Lovely to find it though.

Talking of Becky, she Dean and the boys are away in Skegness at the moment at a holiday camp.  They chose it because there is so much for the children to do.  She phoned me yesterday and told me that Nathan is always the first one on the stage dancing to the music.  That's our boy!  They have been doing a lot of swimming and Daniel even fell asleep in a rubber ring in the swimming pool, bless his heart.  We miss not seeing them this week but they will have so much to tell us on their return.  Dean has such a stressful job, it is nice for him to get away with the family.

Have a good day everyone.