family history

Aunt Jessie – Our Autumn Project

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We have a habit of planning projects when we are on holiday – if you ask me, I can tell you of planning a joint book on the history of the lens planned in a particularly dramatic thunderstorm in Croatia (planned but never realised and there is a story about that thunderstorm but let’s not get distracted…..) – this time, it is to discover who Aunt Jessie was.

Aunt Jessie has been passed down to my Best Beloved from his mother Joan and she was a woman who comprehensively left home – once she was gone, she was gone.

So, the BB has no idea who Aunt Jessie was and why her picture survived in his mother’s affections and belongings.

But she did, and she has been part of our lives.

In Brussels she hung above our fireplace visible from outside, and once someone stopped me as I was leaving the house and told me how much they enjoyed seeing her every day as they walked past our house. ‘She is such a wise woman,’ she said.

Aunt Jessie has moved with us, she hangs in our sitting room and now watches us occasionally clean, watches my BB write his history of Europe, and me and the dog watch Antiques Roadshow.

She needs a bit of cleaning and repairing which we keep meaning to do – but we really want to know who she is.

It is our Autumn/new lockdown project and I am hoping by putting this out into the ether, someone will help us on our way.

Was she really an aunt, or just a family friend who got called auntie by the children – I had lots of people like that in my childhood.

Who painted her, when and why?

We don’t have much to go on.

But here is what we have:

Joan’s parents were Margaret and Harold Tait. Harold was a ‘sea-going engineer’ according to their daughter Joan’s birth certificate.

He was a ship’s engineer on an oil tanker and torpedoed outside Harwich in the first world war.

They lived at 50 Tosson Terrace, Newcastle Upon Tyne when Joan was born in 1918 – she was an only child.

Margaret’s maiden name was Thompson.

Joan’s parents’ names were not uncommon and they were married in 1915.

Harold died on February 13th 1957 at Westgate Road, Wingrove.

Margaret died in June 1964 in Tunbridge Wells – where Joan was living – and she live with the Witney family for a while and then went into a home and died in 1964.

Joan went on to marry Kenneth Percy Witney and gave her address as 76 Simmonside Terrace, Newcastle and her father’s ‘rank or profession’ as marine engineer.

They were married in Kensington in 1947.

She was private secretary to the Scottish Secretary and was commuting between Edinburgh and London where Kenneth was private secretary to the Home Office Minister Ellen Wilkinson. ( And she is worth looking up.)

Kenneth gave his father’s name and profession as Thomas Charles Witney, missionary, but that is another story….

So, that is what we have.

If anyone has any ideas on who she was or how to find out more about Aunt Jessie, thank you.

Edith

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Amongst a donation last week was a book which is called ‘The Place Names of Warwickshire’. The spine has that printed on it and ‘English Place Names Society XIII’ and the crest for Cambridge Press.

I put it to one side as it seemed arcane enough to be worth checking out and – as my frequent reader will know – arcane often equals value one way or another.

A couple of days later it was in a small pile of books I needed to check out and so I opened it to get the publications date etc etc.

Imagine my surprise when I found there was no printed book but the hand-written life story of Edith Chadwick Holmes. At least I think that is what her name is, as the handwriting is hard to decipher.

The first entry is January 6th 1941 and she says she is writing it ‘Just because I have nine grandchildren who like most children just xxx for true stories and are ever curious to hear past histories & habits of their grown up relatives. I am daring enough to write about myself on this, my seventieth birthday, it seems a big age written down & quite startling (?) Now then, the big question is, shall I think backwards into the past or start right from the beginning. I suppose it is right and proper to start once upon a time a baby girl was born on the Epiphany 1871.’

And the last entry is January 30th 1956 which starts, ‘Here I am now age 85 & am wondering if it is worthwhile adding to this account of my simple life, but I hate to leave anything unfinished. It is too wet and cold for gardening so xxx where I left off.’

The final words in the book are ‘and then on to my dear Chad’s death in 1921.’

In the back of the book there is a sort of fixed envelope which would I think, should, if the book had been really printed, have had a map for the place names of Warwickshire.

In it I found some small pages of a notebook written by Edith and starting to tell of her sailing to Durban.

There are also some notes in a different hand, titled Mother’s Story and starting ‘Dad died 27th March 1921’ and I presume is more of the story, retold to Edith’s son or daughter.

If I had the time, I would work my way through the book and notes and transcribe them but I think that is a job for someone researching the family history.

So, I have been looking to find some trace of Edith Chadwick Holmes and I started with the Mormon site – free and very good in the past.

But nothing.

Her parents were Frank and Jane Sophia Fagg of Canterbury, but I cannot find them either.

I presume her beloved Chad was a nickname based on Chadwick Holmes, but I am not sure.

I am not sure either,from glancing though the book,  that Edith’s life was extraordinary but I love the sound of her voice and would like very much to have someone cherish it.

But who, and where, and how? Again, I am not sure I will do the work and it maybe that Edith sits on a shelf in Oxfam until someone picks her up and has the interest and determination to tell her story.

I will have another go at looking for her in the records – not just now though because I have to make supper.

(Just in case you are interested, I am told that sometimes publishers would print and bind a book with blank pages and send to the prospective author and ask him (usually) to fill in the pages. It was an inducement to get the book done. And the book was written and it was published.)