A few people have asked me why I was so desperate to find out what that gravestone I posted the other night said, and I said I’d make a post to explain. So here you are.

This is my great great aunt, Edith, born in 1889. We found a suitcase of old photos a couple of years ago and when I saw this I loved her immediately, because she’s just beautiful! I asked my mum about her, and her story made me so sad. She married a man called Edgar in 1917, they went on honeymoon for about a week, and then he went off to fight in WWI. I found a newspaper clipping about his death, and - and I don’t care how stupid it makes me sound - it really made me cry! It said he seemed in good health on Armistice Day, and ‘his mother and young wife were looking forward to having him home sooner than expected’, then on Christmas Eve they received news he was dangerously ill, and just after Christmas that he’d died of pneumonia. The thought of her being married for only a week before never seeing him again - especially because of all that false hope that he’d survived it - breaks my heart. The only evidence I can find at all of her ever finding love again is a scribbled note on the back of a photograph mentioning someone called Hubert - ‘died before they married’! That makes it even worse! In 1936 she went on a visit to Australia, all by herself (we think to see a penpal), and I don’t know what happened but she died there, aged just 47, without any of her family nearby. We have some of her postcards and letters and she seemed so lovely and kind, and so close to her family. The thought of her dying with none of them there - and of course she was buried there, with none of her family present because they couldn’t afford to go - upsets me immensely too. I hope she had a friend with her at least. So, basically, I’ve been searching and searching for something to make me believe she was happy, because she deserved to be. I’ve become stupidly fond of her. Rest in peace, Auntie Edie <3

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@темы: my life, family history, ancestry, claire has become a family history nerd, sorry for the long ramble but i couldn't 'read more' it

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