Hi Carol
I live in Holywell which isn't far from you. My grandfather, Archie lived in Cannock Chase with his three sisters, Hetty, Leah and Annie Mona. Their father was Horace Holloway and their mother was Annie your great grandma's sister. Annie and Horace were also first cousins, their fathers were brothers, Joseph James and Henry respectively. I used to visit them in Cannock quite a lot until my grandfather died in 1976. As a child I used to love rummaging in the huge trailer they kept all the old costumes in but I was in serious trouble if I got caught. Leah and Annie Mona were like Dickens characters. They wore their hair in ringlets well into their 80s and always had rouged cheeks. They each had their own van and I remember Annie's and Leah's were always full of plastic flowers and had pink net curtains on the windows! Hetty was quite different, I don't think she ever acted. She would cook and clean for them all, she always wore her apron and had her sleeves rolled up and, if I remember rightly, she only had two front teeth! But she was lovely, she always had a bag of sweets ready for me when we visited.
My great great grandfather Henry settled in Rhosymedre, he died there in about 1901. He was Horace's father. When Horace's mother Catherine died Henry remarried and I'm sure he married his niece, Annie and Julia's sister, Matilda!
I'm carrying on the family tradition, I do a lot of acting. I'm off to Guernsey at the end of the month with a one act play in which I play a mad Irish nun!
Great to hear from you.
Jan
