My great grandfather’s brother William Taylor Sharman was born in Swinstead in south Lincolnshire on 18th February 1866. His wife was Elizabeth Ellen (née Styles), and they had three daughters - Hilda, Kathleen (born 1896) and Dorothy (born 1898). Sometime in the 1930s or early 1940s William and his family moved to Essex. We think that he farmed in or near Eight Ash Green near Colchester. Elizabeth Ellen died in the summer of 1946 aged 88 years. This left Dorothy, the only unmarried daughter, alone with her father. However, we know little more about the life of William Taylor Sharman apart from the contents of a letter dated 1962 from Dorothy at Eight Ash Green. In the letter she referred to her late mother, to Hilda living in London and having three grown-up children and three grandchildren, and to Kathleen living near Sudbury in Suffolk and having two grown-up children but no grandchildren yet. Dorothy was living with and looking after her father, but she stated that William himself was “rather a bent old man” who was capable of walking “only a few steps”. Dorothy wrote of feeling isolated from the rest of our family and wishing both that she had married and that she was “back home”. She referred to William’s ill health with no optimism saying “when you get (to) 96 you cannot expect much”. Dorothy’s fears were indeed justified, as William Taylor Sharman died on 26th April 1962.
I have tried without success to get information about William on the Essex message board. Now I am hoping that someone here will have information about Kathleen at Sudbury. Sadly, however, I don't even know her married name.
To see my Sharman Family History please visit
http://homepages.tesco.net/~jksharman/sharmanfamhist1.htm .
Thank you.
