108th Wedding Anniversary

Once again, something very interesting has come into my hands; this time it was safely delivered to me  via Royal Mail and Canada Post from AR (only just though, as the envelope was poking half-way out of  the mail slot and it began to pour with rain about 15 minutes after I came home and rescued it).  The package had a dozen photographs in it - all originals, some without copies made of them - and the one that is most exciting, is the wedding picture of Lionel Percy Waller and Lily Maud Meadows.  Sometime in the last couple of decades, someone (we do not know who), had a professional restore the 1904 photograph to the best of his/her ability, and the result is not too bad.  I am going to see about someone here taking another crack at it in the new year, because the technology will have improved and we may get an even better quality picture from it.  I have put a copy of the original below the others, so that you can see what a state it is in.  It looks as though is has deteriorated further at the edges.

 If I paid more attention to dates, I would have done more than just notice that the wedding photograph was taken in winter, and found out that Lionel and Lily were married on December 24th, 1904, and could have made this an anniversary blog posting on Christmas Eve.

Full wedding party? Or just the Meadows side?

I wonder why the picture was taken on this bit of uneven-looking ground, rather than on the church steps, or inside a building.  Perhaps it was the fashion, or perhaps this was a place of some significance to the couple, or to one of the families.

Are the two people behind Lily Maud someone's, parents?  The fellow in the uniform is Lionel's best man.  AR thinks the lady sitting in black (above picture) and the man behind her may be parents of Lily.  If so, we have here the only known images of my great-great grandparents.  The lady in black does look more like Lily.  It is a shame that the original photograph distorts Lily's face, because in the reproduction photo, she looks all wonky, and it's impossible to tell what her wedding dress looked like.

Close up of Lionel Waller (in his Royal Horse Artillery uniform) and Lily Meadows

The current state of the original copy of wedding photograph of Lionel Percy Waller & Lily Maud Meadows

This poor old battered photograph survived a couple of world wars and much travelling around with those to whom it belonged over the years, and then its most recent trip across the Atlantic by post.  It is a miracle that it did survive at all to land in the hands of a great-granddaughter in the digital age.  There must be a few hundred people alive today who are connected with the people in this picture.  I hope others are led here eventually, to see this picture of their ancient relations as well.

Second Snow Storm of the Week

Here is a picture of my garden after the Boxing Day storm.

Here is a picture of what it looks like out the window right now, three days later.

[Later] And then in the last light of the afternoon -

12/12/12

December 12th, 2012: today is the last time we will have a 'triple' date until the next century.  And it is quite possible that by then there will be some new form of international time and date keeping based on the metric system, so this may be the last triple date ever.

This morning I have been rearranging my writing room and cleaning it out.  Amongst other dusty discoveries, I came across the bible that had belonged to my uncle Roger, who, sadly, died when he was a child, long before there was anyone alive to call him uncle.  There is a note written in the front of it from his teacher, dated 1950, that says it was presented for "Good Conduct".  This was obviously carefully saved by his mother, and copies of his Sunday School "star registers" are tucked in, along with all kinds of little religious cards stuffed into different chapters (whether marking verses of significance or not we will never know), some of them with pencil drawings done by a very young child on the backs.

Another John Brewer marriage

Just for the records, there is another marriage recorded for a John Brewer.  This one is to a Joan (or Jone) Harvey on May 11th, 1612.  I had dismissed this John earlier, because of dates that do not make sense in other documents linked to him, but someone on the "Family Central" website has put Joan Harvey as Adam's mother.  Whoever it was may have had access to primary sources, so I will add this as a 'further possibility' addendum to my previous posting.

The Trail Grows Cold

My winning streak has come to an end on the Brewer family trail in Earls Colne.  There may be connections yet to come with all the Wallers or Walls that are in the records there, but I'll have to make them through the Coggeshall Waller records, if they exist. 

Unfortunately, there is no trace of Rose Brewer's maiden name, or connection to a baptism record in Earls Colne.  And on Adam Brewer's side, his  father was named John Brewer/Bruer (no mother's name is on record), and I have found three such men that could be him, but I cannot definitively connect one of them to Adam.


The first: a John Brewer who married Ann Bridge on April 15th, 1588.  They had children named Joan (6-7-1589) and Rachel (17-6-1593). The second: a John Bruer who married Joan Jolly on January 26th, 1596.  They had Elizabeth (14-3-1596).


The third: a John Bruer who married "Phill" Sparrow (not sure what Phill was short for) on May 9th, 1598.  They had children named Amy (16-7-1599), and Hugh (19-10-1600).

It is also possible that none of these Johns is his father, that he had come from another village.  And it is also possible that the same John had two or three wives in succession as there may have been eruptive fever epidemics at this time, such as smallpox, killing  them off. 

I like the sounds of Joan Jolly and Phill Sparrow - they'd be good names for a great x's 10 grandmother.

image credit: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/image.aspx?compid=15177&filename=fig16.gif&pubid=48