Faces from an unexplored past

Great grandmother, Jessie Susan Harris (left), and sister in law (?) Alice Margaret Wright. Photo by Eden George, Christchurch. From photograph album owned by Jack Thomas Frederick Baker, son of Clara Elizabeth Harris (1873-1945). With grateful thanks to Belinda Lansley for sending me the link to Clara’s album (canterburyphotography.blogspot.co.nz), and others.

We can’t help ourselves. We look at family photos and can’t help trying to find some resemblance between those we know and love, and the the faces in pictures.

The hallway in my house has become a rogues gallery of family photos and there is much pleasure to be had watching visitors scrutinize them, trying to establish who’s who. My son is regularly mistaken for his father in one photo, and an older cousin in another; while I increasingly see myself in the faces of my maternal aunts.

For family historians, photographs are the ultimate treasure. We spend so long trying to put flesh on the bones of our ancestors, that to see the faces of these long-dead men and women is a sweet pleasure indeed.

My partner is fortunate to share in a large collection of photos (now digitised) from his mother’s side of the family, but until very recently we had virtually none from his father’s side.

Paternal line. Roger Andrew Gray with his parents, Merle Matilda Wright and Wallace Oliver Gray. c. 1956. Photo: Gray-Dove family archive.

This changed when a fellow blogger (Belinda Lansley, at Great Grandma’s Wicker Basket) recognised the Big T’s paternal grandmother, Merle Matilda Laura Wright as a friend of her own great grandmother, Dorothy Lord. In Belinda’s collection of family photos were several of Merle, her sister Clara and other members of the Wright family. These she generously shared with me.

Dorothy Lord, Clara Wright, May Lord, Merle Wright early 1920s. With grateful thanks to Belinda Lansley for allowing me to reproduce this image.

Belinda also sent me the link to a photograph album belonging to another member of Merle’s extended family (Early New Zealand Photographers), and it is through these sources that we have begun to learn a little about this branch of the family.

Merle was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1904, to Jessie Susan Harris and Sidney Robert Wright. The couple married in Timaru in 1890, and had eight children; Harry, Margaret, Fred, Alice, Sidney, Merle, Clara and Frank (Source: Births, Deaths and Marriages NZ)

Jessie Harris (shown in the first photo with Alice Margaret Wright) was born on March 21st, 1868, in Christchurch, twin sister of Henry Richard Harris.

The photo below is Jessie’s brother Henry, with Sidney Wright — Jessie’s husband. It appears that both families lived in Ohoka, a small rural settlement near Christchurch, and would presumably have known each other. Did Jessie marry her twin’s best friend?

Henry Richard Harris (left) with Sidney Robert Wright. Photo by Eden George – Christchurch. With grateful thanks to Belinda Lansley for sending me the link to Clara’s album (canterburyphotography.blogspot.co.nz).

Sidney was born three weeks after the Harris twins, on 9 April 1868. He was the third of six children born to Robert Marshall Wright and Matilda Ann Baker (married 1859: source BDM New Zealand).

Another photo in the same album shows Jessie and Henry as small children with their mother, Sarah Ann Duffull. A note with the photograph indicates that Sarah was born in Croyden, England. Her marriage, to Nathaniel Harris, took place in New Zealand in 1867. The couple appears to have had 10 children, including two sets of twins (source: BDM, NZ).

I haven’t been able to find New Zealand birth records for Nathaniel Harris, Robert Wright or Matilda Baker, so it would appear that all four of Merle Wright’s grandparents were born outside of New Zealand, and immigrated either as children, or young adults, making the Big T a fourth generation Kiwi.

Sarah Anne Duffull with her children Jessie Susan and Henry Richard Harris. c. 1871. Photo by Eden George – Christchurch. Grateful thanks to Belinda Lansley for sending me the link to this photo.

Far left, Jessie Harris, middle seated, May Lord, family friend and great grand aunt of Belinda Lansley, who has kindly shared this photo with me. The identity of the other women and the children is unknown.

One of the great joys of genealogy blogging is meeting distant relatives and others with shared connections to the past. When Belinda generously shared photos with me, she gave my family the chance to see the faces of men and women who helped shape the people that my partner and son are today. For that, I am extremely grateful.

This post was written for Ailsa’s Travel Theme at Where’s My Backpack.

 

A force of nature

The boy-child holding court with his great grandmother.

Yesterday would have been my gran’s 107th birthday. There was a time when I could almost have believed she would live to 107; she seemed for so long to have such energy and strength. But she died a few days short of her 98th birthday — having moved from her own house into a care home a year or so before.

Margaret Simpson Bissett Cruden (11 May 1908 – 1 May 2006) was the eldest child and only daughter of Alexander Cruden and Catherine Simpson Bisset Black. My great grandparents were very young when she was born; Great Gran was 18, Great Grandad still 17. Margaret had four younger brothers; Stewart, Alexander, James and George, the youngest of whom was born just a few months before my gran herself became a mother.

Gran was born and raised in Dysart, Scotland and lived all her life in Dysart and Kirkcaldy. She married my grandad (David Skinner Ramsay) in 1927, when Grandad was 25 and she was 18. They raised six children; a son David, and five daughters – Catherine, May, Margaret, Elizabeth (my mum) and Sandra.

Ramsay family portrait. Standing (l-r): Elizabeth, Sandra, Margaret, May, David and Cathy. Seated Margaret Cruden and David Ramsay. Photo: Ramsay Leslie family archive.

Grandad was a coal miner, who, in later life, suffered from diabetes. Because of that he had both legs amputated at the knee after small wounds turned gangrenous. My gran was relatively young when she found herself nursing an invalid husband; a role she took on without hesitation and carried out with great love and care until my grandad’s death in 1973.

Margaret Cruden and David Ramsay, Dunnikier Park Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland. Photo: Ramsay family archive.

After his death, my grandmother left the UK for the first (but not the last) time. She travelled to New Zealand to visit my family and to Australia to stay with her brother Alexander and his family. During the next thirty years she travelled again to Australia, to Zimbabwe while it was still Rhodesia and in the midst of civil war, and to Switzerland to visit one of my cousins. She also traveled extensively around the UK visiting family.

Siblings, Margaret and Alexander Cruden, Australia c. 1974. Photo: Ramsay family archive.

I only really got to know my gran in my late twenties and thirties while I was living in the UK. We spent hours together drinking tea, eating meringues (her favourite sweet) and gossiping. She was a lovely little barrel of a woman; about 4′ 10″ (1.47 metres), and solid (I definitely take after her). She was quick-witted,  a good story teller and could be very funny, although she also possessed a very sharp tongue — as anyone on the receiving end of it would tell you.

Four generations: My christening, with my mother Elizabeth Ramsay, grandmother Margaret Cruden and great grandmother Catherine Black. c. 1961. Photo: Ramsay Leslie family archive.

She really was a force of nature; a matriarch who spend almost 80 years looking after her family. She is remembered with great love by a global tribe consisting of not only myself, my siblings and cousins, but our children and the children and grandchildren of Gran’s brothers — who still speak fondly of their “Auntie Maggie.” She had 17 grandchildren, 28 great grandchildren and was great, great grandmother to two newborns by the time she died.

David Ramsay and Margaret Cruden with grandchildren Margaret Ladyka (back), Ian and Sandra Ladyka (front left and centre) and Robert Guthrie. The baby is me. c. 1961. Photo: Ramsay Leslie family archive.

My son only got to meet his great gran once; he was very young, but claims to remember her (she told him off, so I’m not surprised it stayed in his mind).  I’m sad that she died two months before we were due to go back to the UK for a visit. My son was eight by then and would  have enjoyed another encounter with that feisty, four foot ten force of nature.

This week’s Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge theme is forces of nature.  I think my gran qualifies. You can find out more and see other bloggers’ interpretation of the theme here.

Ephemeral traces of lives past

Invitation to my great grandparents 50th wedding anniversary party. Image: Ramsay-Leslie family archive.

For archivists, ephemeral has a specific meaning. Ephemera refers to a class of documents which are not originally intended to be preserved.  Invitations, postcards, tickets, pamphlets and greeting cards would all fall into this category.

That many of these items are preserved (in collections of ephemera) is due to the fact that they can offer valuable historical insights — and are often incredibly interesting. Who has never rummaged amongst the old postcards in second-hand shop and wondered why Jock and Mary thought Eileen worthy of a postcard from Ostend? Or opened a library book, found a first class British Rail ticket from Stevenage to Edinburgh and wondered about the person who made the trip (actually that was me, going to visit a sick aunt).

Over the last few years, my mother has been sending me photographs and other items that she has treasured over the years. Since I’ve become the family historian, she feels happy to pass them into my care. The invitation above is one of the things she gave me.

My great grandparents, Catherine Black and Alexander Cruden got married as pregnant teenagers (he was 17, she 18). They remained married for 62 years, until my great grandad’s death in 1970. I’ve written about them in the past (Getting a telegram from the Queen, On growing old together), partly because I have quite a lot of information about them, but mainly because they were around when I was a small child and I remember them with enormous affection.

It’s lovely then, to have this little piece of ephemera from their lives. The invitation is addressed to my grandparents David Ramsay and Margaret Cruden.

I also have a couple of photos from the event; one of my great grandparents, the other of my mother and a couple of cousins. These provide not only interesting insights into social customs (cups and saucers at a party — these days I’d expect wine glasses), but are also precious memories of people I love.

Photo taken at my great grandparents Golden Wedding anniversary. Left to right James Fowler (husband of my great grandfather’s sister Betsy), my great grandad, Alexander Cruden, my great gran Catherine Black and (far right) her sister Jessie. Photo: Leslie family archive.

Also taken at my great grandparents anniversary party; Elizabeth Leslie (nee Ramsay) with niece Margaret Ladyka and nephew Robert Guthrie. Photo: Leslie family archive.

This post was written for the Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge: ephemeral.

Ephemeral

Wordless Wednesday: thinking of my grandad

David Leslie (23 March 1899 – 26 December 1964), with niece Anne Ford. Date unknown. Photo: Leslie family archive

Six Word Saturday: out to play with their uncles

Am having brain fade today; posting to the “wrong’ blog. But perhaps there is crossover?

Travel theme: laughter

The boy-child, aged 8, sharing a joke with two of his London-based cousins. Photo: Tony Gray, 2006.

In life, we travel through time as well as place, and laughter is a good companion on these journeys.

It’s been almost nine years since our little family travelled together to the UK; the place of both mine and the boy-child’s birth. But the tickets are booked, and we leave in a month for a holiday that will include San Fransisco, Munich and Bordeaux as well as England. We’re excited to be visiting friends and relatives; and though we know we will won’t have enough time with these (geographically) distant members of our whanau, we hope for lots of laughter and new memories to keep us company until the next visit.

This post was written as part of Ailsa’s Travel Theme at Where’s my Backpack. You can find out more here.

Six Word Saturday: coolest picnic photo that I’ve seen

School-girl picnic, Fife, Scotland, c. 1947-48. My mum (far right) and friends.

Wordless Wednesday: Hogmanay

Although I’m fairly sure the photo wasn’t taken at Hogmanay, this time of year always makes me think of my parents and their families. Being Scots, Hogmanay is far more important to them than Christmas, and they used to have huge parties to celebrate the new year. In this photo: from top left my dad’s uncle Bill, my mum and dad, Dad’s cousin’s wife Jean, my great aunt Bessie (barely visible), Dad’s cousin Ann, his brother David and his wife Pat. Kirkcaldy, Scotland, c. late 1950s.

Six Word Saturday: fifty years since my grandad died

Grandad, with my younger brother Craig. Kirkcaldy, Scotland, c. Mar-Apr 1964. Photo: Leslie family archive.

On Boxing Day, 1964, my grandfather David Leslie lost his battle with lung cancer. He was part of my life for such a short time, but left me with lots of wonderful memories.

Six word Saturday: whatever happened to these likely lads?

Out on the town; my Dad (far right) and friends, Kirkcaldy, Scotland, c. 1952. Photo: Leslie family archive.

I’ve always loved this photo and was really pleased to find it in an album my dad sent to me recently. He’d written underneath that the man on the far left is his friend Joe Malone, and of course I recognise my dad on the right, but I have no idea who the others are. They’ll all be in their 80s now.