Four Trees -Our Great Grandmothers

[PaulaToo]

Of the four, which I have put up earlier,
Eliza Ann Smith/Moore/Webb?/Challis?/Wicks
Martha Mathias
Ann Bartlett
Emily Baker,
The only one I have a photo of is Emily Baker, thanks to the restoration people on here, because that was fading fast.

[Joyful]

My four Gt/Grandmothers:
Elizabeth Anderson b Sept 1876 Orkney d May 1976 Glasgow. Married to Joshua Gourlay.
Elizabeth Beard b Ollera NSW Aust d 1936 Glen Innes NSW. MArried to Robert George McCarthy.
Annie Elizabeth Discher b Germany d 1907 Bathhurst NSW. Married to Arthur Allen Knauff.
Elizabeth Jack b 1856 St Nicholas Aberdeen d 1947 Glasgow. Married to Neil McVicar

Joy

[tinav40]

Rachel Hannah Howard 1865 - 1939 Warwickshire
Katherine Walker 1865 - 1917 Gloucestershire
Mary Ann Tongue 1865 Birmingham
Minnie Eliza Wareham 1871 Birmingham
No photos unfortunately

[Rossdal3]

Here are my photos of Harriet Ann Wells and Edith Esther Grange:


Kindly restored by the wonderful RootsChat restorers

Jill

[XPhile2868]

My Four Great Grandmothers are as follows -

Ethel Harling (1898-1967). Born in Preston to Charles and Alice (nee Wilson), she was one of at least 13 children born between 1888 and the 1910s. She lost both of her parents whilst still a teenager, some of her siblings when they were small and one of her brothers died at Ypres. She married Henry Smith in Preston and had three children, of whom only one is still alive.

Elizabeth Veronica Clegg (1908-1981). My youngest great grandmother, she was born two days before Christmas in Preston in 1908 to Joseph and Mary (nee Willis). Like Ethel, she was one of around 13 children, eight of whom fought in WW2, one dying in a plane crash in Malta in late 1942. She married a London-born greengrocer called James Maynard, who actually had an horse and cart to sell his produce from. She was known as Vera rather than Elizabeth. She died on Christmas Day in 1981 after being ill for quite some time.

Beatrice Scowcroft (1901-1957). Beatrice was born in 1901 in either Preston or the Chorley area to James and Mary Ann (nee Callaghan). As seems to be the rule for my great grandmothers, she was born into a large family. She married Leyland-born James McKenna and had four children surviving to adulthood, although five died during pregnancy. She was killed by a drink driver in the late 1950s.

Elizabeth Alice Moxham (1897-c1935). Elizabeth was born in Preston out of wedlock to Ellen Moxham and named after two of her aunts. Unlike the other three of my great grandmothers, she appears to be an only child, although she did grow up for a while with her cousin, who would later emigrate to Pennsylvania to become a steel mill worker. She married Lewin Henry Ricketts, who fought in WW1 and took part in the last British cavalry charge. They had three children before Elizabeth passed away sometime in the 1930s - she had polycystic kidneys adn the disease has been passed on to many female members of my maternal family. Lewin remarried around 1946.


Stephen

[Margarett]

My 4 Great-grandmothers were :

Elizabeth Harris born Rowley Regis, Staffs 1842. Died 1913
Elizabeth Pugh born Halesowen, Worcs. 1857. Died 1938
Sarah Jane Bowater born Cakemore, Halesowen, Worcs. 1867, died 1963
Hannah Mor(e)ton born Rowley Regis, Staffs 1876, died 1953.

Margaret

[IgorStrav]

My four great grandmothers were:

Charlotte Barwell, born 6/7/1851 in Gretton, Northants, died 16/4/1935 in Greenwich.  Charlotte's stepfather and brother were both bakers, and she married my ggfather William Thomas Wade, who was also a baker in 1871.  She had 8 children, two of whom died before her.  A hard life, if family accounts are to be believed.

Victoria Adelaide Barham, born 25/3/1865 in Ightham, Kent, died 1913 of breast cancer.  Victoria Adelaide was brought up by her stepfather Barham, and married under that name, but her true surname was Corke - her mother had been married previously to a Richard Corke who was a seaman on HMS Victoria.  She was a loving sister to 11 half siblings, and had 12 children herself.  Two of them died in what must have been the most appalling time of her life in January 1893, aged 5 and 3, whilst my grandfather, aged 4, survived.

Ann Kesneer, born 1848 in Antwerp, Belgium. She came to England in approximately 1875 and married Victor Desire Van Steenhoven, also from Antwerp, who was apparently as flighty as his name suggests.  She had 6 children.

The final great grandmother I know only as Mary Ann Burton - I haven't found her maiden name or her marriage details to my great grandfather.  Mary Ann will probably have lived in the greatest poverty, being born in c 1851 in Whitechapel in London, and spent her life in the worst parts of East London, her husband a dock labourer in constant search for work and money.

When I started this research I was struck by the thought that all those pictures of Victorian street urchins which I had previously tutted over, could really have been my forebears.  I raise my glass to them all.

[Zelley]

When I started this research I was struck by the thought that all those pictures of Victorian street urchins which I had previously tutted over, could really have been my forebears.  I raise my glass to them all.

May your glass be raised very high .  Thanks so much for this closing comment

[IgorStrav]

Thank you Zelley.  I'm sure I'm not alone in finding that this research brings, perhaps surprisingly amongst all the other reasons why we do it, a great sense of gratitude and appreciation of those who went before.

When one has a "down" moment, our forebears are able to bring comfort.

Here's to them!