When many of my father's key ppl died before getting old? 25 4 18
This new blog from my home in Finland these past almost 36 years..?
His father's father J-P aged 52, his father also J-P and sister, L.L. 51. Only his mother L.R. aged 72. Also of course my own father dying aged 39 when I was only 5 1/2 years, but old enough to get to know his sister and mother, my Grannie K., and be a guest at L.L.'s second wedding in 1944, see pic below, a re-run of his own wedding perhaps, held in the year I was born?
But then his sister's children, all 4 boys would, in part half and half, like me, suffer myocardial infarctions at one time or another. My older cousin Dave, her eldest, the first, resulting in his requiring a quadrupal bypass operation, whilst my bypass by that time living abroad, like my Great Grandad K., was for only for 3 arteries, the grafts coming from a non-essential breast artery being re-directed, together with grafts taken from the length of my left leg. Whilst his next to his youngest half brother, Bob, finally succuming to a fatal infarction which led to his death in the month had he lived a few more weeks would have seen him reaching age 60.
And in my own family of my two sons, my youngest also a P., not J-P but a K.P., carrying the same name as my paternal Granddad and Great Granddad, would suffer his heart attack in his 40's, and my only sister, Marion would happily have to wait until her 78th year, just beginning, when her myocardial infarction swept her clean away in less than a couple of minutes.
So now I have written about my Dad's sister and Mother but re-reading today about his grandmother K, from my eldest son's, J-S's researches, she had already changed her surname twice more since being born in 1843 a Moss, Elizabeth Moss, with a mother whose maiden name was Clarke: from the same area of another lady of that surname, who much later married my Uncle George, my mother's yougest brother in the mid-nineteeth centuary, say in 1945... His researches further suggest she was 18 years old when James Patrick, our Great Grandfather, born in Ireland in County Dublin, met her, as a lodger staying at her parental home, in the area of Hulme in the City of Manchester: an area and some of its ppl known to me as a boy, since I used to visit my Godparents (my mother's elder sister Marion and husband Francis, or Frank) and cousins, Frank and George. Plus my Uncle George and his family also, perhaps a mile closer the City Centre, all of whom resided in Hulme, on or near its famous City Road.
Giving birth to their first son William Edward, within a year of the 1861 census, but not getting married until 26th April in 1863, when she would be 20 years of age, whilst her groom was variously recorded as being 12, 11, 8, or 7 years her senior, and as old as 32 when they met, a mature man of 32 meeeting an immature girl of 18 in the same household.. Getting married a few months pregnant with his second child, our grandfather also James Patrick, strikes one as quite feasible since the men in my father's family had the habit of marrying women much younger: our father marrying our mother before he was 32, himself lying about his greater age, reducing it to 30, whilst she was in fact 8 years younger. When she gave birth to his first child, my older brother Jim Junior. But most interesting that Elizabeth gave birth a third time with the arrival of Alfred, a blind child, followed by a fourth with Frederick, the line up at a later census giving their ages as 9, 7, 4 and 2 in 1871. Having moved from Bury Street, Hulme off City Road, which as a child of 5 to 8 or 9, I can distinctly remember, owing to the fact that at that time I was living in the town of Bury, 12 miles to the north of Manchester. Possibly more interesting still that within a year of the 1971 census Elizabeth was getting married a second time, to a man called Charles Fredrick Johns, the local registrar, perhaps meeting as she repeatedly had her own progeny registered!? They tied the marrital knot 25th March 1872, she aged 29 whilst her ex-husband, J-P, would have been 41, no longer figuring in family records, only 11 years left to live. Charles' and Elizabeth's daughter Lily being born 6 months after their marriage. Perhaps J-P senior turned to drink..? By the time of her second marriage their children are in ages 18, 16, 13 and 11 and remained with their mother whilst J-P's fate is subject only to speculation: an emigre from Eire and what was left of its population after the famines of the 1850's to 60's when a third died, a third left for pastures new in the USA and Britain leaving a third to survive in Eire?
Then a second daughter Lizzie Rose, born in 1877 but sadly dying a year later, before Charles her new husband died to pneumonia in 1880.
Therafter marrying a third husband, August 24th 1885 to a John Leigh, who aged 44 in 1890 died when she was 47, a union which didn't produce progeny...Thereafter Elizabeth's fortunes improved financially to the extent she became a grocer, living out her life until her death in 1920 aged 77, attended by her granddaughter, now a Mrs Hall, Alfred meanwhile living in his so-called "Blind Asylum", the same age as my sister, Elizabeth's great grandaughter, Marion.
Finally I will add that my father's untimely death whilst stationed in Australia as a Royal Marine Engineer from the decease leukemia couldn't have been anything but an acute form since only a few months before he had had to be declared A1, in terms of his fitness to be chosen to depart for Australia, and the then Japanese theatre of War. Sadly the desease was not so well known in 1945 when we heard he had been subject to several blood transfusions, but to no avail. When much later we heard that bone marrow transplantation was to become the preferred treatment, but as his only nearest relative his sister, was living in England at the time, this wouldn't have been an option for him one has to think.
All in all it leaves one with scant knowledge of my K antecedents. My father's comment aged 8 upon his father death: "Now my mother won't need to buy him any more beer!" which came to me from our cousin David, my senior by 2 or 3 years, who continued living in the same household as our Grannie K. until her death aged 71 in 1949 (his sister, L.L., born in 1907 dying in 1958). Another comment Grannie K made to cousin David was that "You should never marry a Roman Catholic", now that my own son's family researches have established that James Patrick's parents wedding was a Roman Catholic ceremony, but not his to our Grannie K. As J-P's possibility of getting a liking for alcohol as a 16 year old would not be unusual, but it would help explain why our dad continued supporting his widowed mother, after marrying our mother, and why as a British Naval rating, he forewent the ship's Rum Ration, rather taking the price of it's cost in extra pay, during his 6 week voyage to Australia during his last months of life towards the end of WW II.
Finally the flightiness of the Lily Clarke married to my mother's younger brother George, whose life was also blighted by drink, is in no way substantive evidence to anything in this account: many many men have demonstrated a weakness for alcohol and no doubt many of their once happy women have become disenchanted with their behaviour once more intoxicated..? Nice for me the author of this piece to have stopped partaking of the grape already 2 years and 3 1/2 months ago! Happy Easter everyone!
The following pic of my Dad's sister's 2nd wedding...
His father's father J-P aged 52, his father also J-P and sister, L.L. 51. Only his mother L.R. aged 72. Also of course my own father dying aged 39 when I was only 5 1/2 years, but old enough to get to know his sister and mother, my Grannie K., and be a guest at L.L.'s second wedding in 1944, see pic below, a re-run of his own wedding perhaps, held in the year I was born?
But then his sister's children, all 4 boys would, in part half and half, like me, suffer myocardial infarctions at one time or another. My older cousin Dave, her eldest, the first, resulting in his requiring a quadrupal bypass operation, whilst my bypass by that time living abroad, like my Great Grandad K., was for only for 3 arteries, the grafts coming from a non-essential breast artery being re-directed, together with grafts taken from the length of my left leg. Whilst his next to his youngest half brother, Bob, finally succuming to a fatal infarction which led to his death in the month had he lived a few more weeks would have seen him reaching age 60.
And in my own family of my two sons, my youngest also a P., not J-P but a K.P., carrying the same name as my paternal Granddad and Great Granddad, would suffer his heart attack in his 40's, and my only sister, Marion would happily have to wait until her 78th year, just beginning, when her myocardial infarction swept her clean away in less than a couple of minutes.
So now I have written about my Dad's sister and Mother but re-reading today about his grandmother K, from my eldest son's, J-S's researches, she had already changed her surname twice more since being born in 1843 a Moss, Elizabeth Moss, with a mother whose maiden name was Clarke: from the same area of another lady of that surname, who much later married my Uncle George, my mother's yougest brother in the mid-nineteeth centuary, say in 1945... His researches further suggest she was 18 years old when James Patrick, our Great Grandfather, born in Ireland in County Dublin, met her, as a lodger staying at her parental home, in the area of Hulme in the City of Manchester: an area and some of its ppl known to me as a boy, since I used to visit my Godparents (my mother's elder sister Marion and husband Francis, or Frank) and cousins, Frank and George. Plus my Uncle George and his family also, perhaps a mile closer the City Centre, all of whom resided in Hulme, on or near its famous City Road.
Giving birth to their first son William Edward, within a year of the 1861 census, but not getting married until 26th April in 1863, when she would be 20 years of age, whilst her groom was variously recorded as being 12, 11, 8, or 7 years her senior, and as old as 32 when they met, a mature man of 32 meeeting an immature girl of 18 in the same household.. Getting married a few months pregnant with his second child, our grandfather also James Patrick, strikes one as quite feasible since the men in my father's family had the habit of marrying women much younger: our father marrying our mother before he was 32, himself lying about his greater age, reducing it to 30, whilst she was in fact 8 years younger. When she gave birth to his first child, my older brother Jim Junior. But most interesting that Elizabeth gave birth a third time with the arrival of Alfred, a blind child, followed by a fourth with Frederick, the line up at a later census giving their ages as 9, 7, 4 and 2 in 1871. Having moved from Bury Street, Hulme off City Road, which as a child of 5 to 8 or 9, I can distinctly remember, owing to the fact that at that time I was living in the town of Bury, 12 miles to the north of Manchester. Possibly more interesting still that within a year of the 1971 census Elizabeth was getting married a second time, to a man called Charles Fredrick Johns, the local registrar, perhaps meeting as she repeatedly had her own progeny registered!? They tied the marrital knot 25th March 1872, she aged 29 whilst her ex-husband, J-P, would have been 41, no longer figuring in family records, only 11 years left to live. Charles' and Elizabeth's daughter Lily being born 6 months after their marriage. Perhaps J-P senior turned to drink..? By the time of her second marriage their children are in ages 18, 16, 13 and 11 and remained with their mother whilst J-P's fate is subject only to speculation: an emigre from Eire and what was left of its population after the famines of the 1850's to 60's when a third died, a third left for pastures new in the USA and Britain leaving a third to survive in Eire?
Then a second daughter Lizzie Rose, born in 1877 but sadly dying a year later, before Charles her new husband died to pneumonia in 1880.
Therafter marrying a third husband, August 24th 1885 to a John Leigh, who aged 44 in 1890 died when she was 47, a union which didn't produce progeny...Thereafter Elizabeth's fortunes improved financially to the extent she became a grocer, living out her life until her death in 1920 aged 77, attended by her granddaughter, now a Mrs Hall, Alfred meanwhile living in his so-called "Blind Asylum", the same age as my sister, Elizabeth's great grandaughter, Marion.
Finally I will add that my father's untimely death whilst stationed in Australia as a Royal Marine Engineer from the decease leukemia couldn't have been anything but an acute form since only a few months before he had had to be declared A1, in terms of his fitness to be chosen to depart for Australia, and the then Japanese theatre of War. Sadly the desease was not so well known in 1945 when we heard he had been subject to several blood transfusions, but to no avail. When much later we heard that bone marrow transplantation was to become the preferred treatment, but as his only nearest relative his sister, was living in England at the time, this wouldn't have been an option for him one has to think.
All in all it leaves one with scant knowledge of my K antecedents. My father's comment aged 8 upon his father death: "Now my mother won't need to buy him any more beer!" which came to me from our cousin David, my senior by 2 or 3 years, who continued living in the same household as our Grannie K. until her death aged 71 in 1949 (his sister, L.L., born in 1907 dying in 1958). Another comment Grannie K made to cousin David was that "You should never marry a Roman Catholic", now that my own son's family researches have established that James Patrick's parents wedding was a Roman Catholic ceremony, but not his to our Grannie K. As J-P's possibility of getting a liking for alcohol as a 16 year old would not be unusual, but it would help explain why our dad continued supporting his widowed mother, after marrying our mother, and why as a British Naval rating, he forewent the ship's Rum Ration, rather taking the price of it's cost in extra pay, during his 6 week voyage to Australia during his last months of life towards the end of WW II.
Finally the flightiness of the Lily Clarke married to my mother's younger brother George, whose life was also blighted by drink, is in no way substantive evidence to anything in this account: many many men have demonstrated a weakness for alcohol and no doubt many of their once happy women have become disenchanted with their behaviour once more intoxicated..? Nice for me the author of this piece to have stopped partaking of the grape already 2 years and 3 1/2 months ago! Happy Easter everyone!
The following pic of my Dad's sister's 2nd wedding...
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