Marmoreal - Legacy of Love

When the time came to choose a new gas fire and surround for the front room, I knew exactly what I wanted; small, white-ish marble with narrow hearth and mantle piece. It had to be marble, not the composite, marmoreal looking stuff that looks like plastic pretending to be brown onyx. It was going to replace a massive, tiled thing with a sunburst design. Hairline cracks in the hearth were stained black from years of having a coal fire – before our time, but we might wish for it this coming winter – and it stretched too far towards the middle of what is quite a small room. A very efficient, old-fashioned gas fire looked like it didn’t belong, but it really blasted the heat out, excellent when needed and served us well. Replacing it wasn’t a financial priority, however, being a beneficiary in the Will of a departed aunt raised the opportunity. I was very happy to find my preferred fireplace and ‘living gas fire’ which still look great in our lounge twenty-odd years later. Thanks again, Auntie.

Auntie’s passing, very sad as it is with a close relative, left me and my sister with added complications in dealing with her estate. My sister took charge of most of it. It was emotional for both of us and I was carrying the added burden of guilt. I’d always had a lovely relationship with Auntie. Things changed as she got older and I was raising my own family. I didn’t completely fall out with her, it was more of a frustrating situation that I didn’t know how to handle.  She would phone me, to tell me off and shout at me for no valid reason. She lived alone in another town a good hour’s drive away, too far to just pop in, another contentious issue.  I had two small children, doing my best for everyone who needed me, including Auntie, but for her, nothing was good enough and I didn’t have the patience to deal with it. If I had, I might have realised that she probably had a form of dementia and needed the right care that I might have been able to find for her. She died before her behaviour made any sense to me.

Nothing was straightforward. Auntie had been living in a council owned bungalow suited to her needs, which had to be emptied within days, even before her funeral. She still owned a property which had to be sold, but some connected finances needed to be cleared before it could go on the market. Bless my sister, I didn’t have the brain to cope. She kept her head straight through it all. Eventually, and it was ages, everything was signed, sealed and delivered. Job done. I’ve kept all of Auntie’s photos and special things. Her archive of family papers sent me on a genealogy journey that I continue to dip in and out of. And, somewhere on this journey I discovered that she didn’t hate me, she loved me as she always had but she was confused and not herself. With some of the monetary inheritance, we bought a beautiful marble fireplace, the perfect size for our lounge.

I don’t do much grave visiting. I carry memories of my departed loved ones in my head and in my heart, all special people, my family. They are so much more than names carved on tombstones or on the marmoreal kerb-like structure surrounding one of our graves.

I found this poem, which reminded me so much of my late mother until the last line, which clearly refers to a lost love. Read it through my eyes and ignore the last bit.

Your Name

When I can dare at last to speak your name
It shall not be with hushed and reverent speech
As if your spirit were beyond the reach
Of homely merry things, kind jest or game.
Death shall not hide you in some jewelled shrine
Nor set you in marmoreal pomp apart,
You who still share the ingle of my heart,
Participant in every thought of mine.

Your name, when I can dare to speak it, dear,
Shall still be linked with laughter and with joy.
No solemn panegyrist shall destroy
My image of you, gay, familiar
As in old happy days,—lest I discover
Too late I’ve won a saint but lost a lover.

Winifred M Letts 1882 - 1972

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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For the Record - Put It Straight

 One glorious summer afternoon, a few years ago, my husband and I were on my ancestry trail in Manchester's Southern Cemetery. I had done some groundwork online and had a print-out map of the burial grounds with my family members plot details marking locations.

There can be lots to learn from headstone inscriptions, things not recorded elsewhere. I took time to make notes, take photographs and have a silent word with my dear departed ones. There are some interesting folk in my bloodline and this cemetery has four if not five generations of my paternal line. How handy for me that they are all in the same place. It makes adding branches to the family tree so much easier. All was going well until I couldn't find my four-greats grandfather, Benjamin. The number for his resting place was a multiple burial pauper's grave with a list of names which didn't include him. This couldn't be it. From my genealogy discoveries, I knew Benjamin to be a successful,  wealthy man with no suggestion of hard times at the end of his life. It looked like the end of my journey - until we realised that the cemetery records office was still open. I went to ask for help.

If ever I had a lucky day, this was it. Someone checked online and got the same information I had, which was clearly wrong. Within minutes, I was sitting at a desk with a huge register in front of me, in awe of the beautifully hand-written burial records in magnificent copperplate. With Benjamin's full name, date of birth, date of death and interment, I found his grave number straight away. Online details end with an E, in the register with a K. I could see what must have happened when the details were transferred to digital. The style of writing had a flourish on the capital K which could easily be mistaken for an E. I mentioned my possible discovery to a staff member.

With the revised details, I found Benjamin's resting place, complete with a headstone befitting the gentleman I considered him to be. I went back to thank the office staff and tell them my findings. They thanked me - had I not queried Benjamin's grave, the error might never have come to light.

My poem:

I'm really having fun in here,
Line after line it seems quite clear,
Data input made a mistake.
Let's put it right for all our sakes.

Please can we put the record straight?
It's all gone wrong on column eight
And what's been listed as an E
Is actu'lly a K, you see.

I wish I had all afternoon,
Sadly, I have to go home soon,
But now you know what has gone wrong,
You can put Ks where they belong.

PMW 2021

Thanks for reading, keep safe, Pam x

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My Curiosity Thing

My curiosity thing, it all started with a name I didn’t recognise.

Following the death of a close relative, I came into possession of her belongings, including a large, torn, worn and overly stuffed envelope bearing the words Important Papers printed neatly on the front. When I got round to examining the contents, there were all sorts of things and none of it in any order. Certificates of births, marriages and deaths, mainly concerning my grandparents, were folded up amongst old photographs of family members I struggled to recognise. I smiled at the black and white image of my beloved maternal grandmother, young, slim and fashionable with a dashing young man by her side. I didn’t realise it was my grandfather, white scarf, white gloves, tilted Trilby hat. How handsome he was and what a shame about the tea or coffee stain, a perfect brown circle across the lower half of his pin-striped trousers.  Black-edged funeral cards dating back to long before I was born, one from just before the twentieth century were squashed together in a small, white envelope. A collection of very old Prudential insurance certificates were particularly delicate with tears appearing along the fold lines.

As I glanced through the items and attempted to put them in some sort of order, the same surname kept cropping up and I grew increasingly curious. I knew the maternal side of my family very well, at least I thought I did. No one had this surname and there was nothing to indicate what the contact was. There was nobody left to ask and at that time, I didn’t expect to find out.

Years later, during a lengthy recovery from illness, I decided to see how far I could track my family tree online. I had been fascinated by the television programme ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ and public records were easily accessed on a couple of reliable websites. I wondered if it was really an ok thing to do and I was full of ‘what ifs’. Curiosity got the better of me and I subscribed to one of the better known genealogy sites and spent hours studying electoral rolls and census details. I discovered that the recurring name in my aunt’s papers was the maiden name of my great-grandmother. She had many siblings which accounted for the frequency of the name showing up.

My late father never knew his heritage from his mother’s side. I wish he could have lived long enough to have had access to the information which is so easily available nowadays. He knew she was orphaned as a baby and taken in by another family and maybe not formally adopted, nothing more. She might not have known anything herself. Recently, I was having another look at my paternal side and after discovering a possible link, I found her on the 1901 census. I was able to trace her back to her parents and after obtaining death certificates, I learnt that her mother died days after giving birth as a result of what we now know to be pre-eclampsia and her father died a few months later of TB.

Curiosity killed the cat, so it’s said and satisfaction brought it back. I’ve found the answers to most of my genealogy curiosities and I haven’t discovered anything bad. No one has been thrown in jail, or worse. It seems like we’ve always been the ordinary folk that we are today. I’ll let you know if I uncover anything shocking.

Thanks for reading, Pam.

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