Lilian May Golesworthy was my husband’s mother. She was born on 5 April 1909, in Holborn, London, UK, and died in Ringwood, Hampshire on 4 February 1976 aged only 66 years.
Her parents were Walter Frederick Golesworthy and Lilian St John. In 1935 she married Charles Leonard Reuby in Hackney, London, UK.
They had two sons, my husband Peter Leonard, and his late brother, Terence Bramley Charles. Bramley is apparently a family name, but I haven’t been able to trace it to another family member yet.
Elizabeth Wilsher was born in Biddulph, Staffordshire in 1828. She married Reuben Austin in 1845 in the Wolstanton District of Staffordshire, and they are my great-great-grandparents.
I haven’t traced her death, although her last child was born in 1866, so it was that year or later.
Her maiden name is also recorded as Willshaw.
Mary Ann Austin was my great-grandmother, mother of Amy Rebecca Carter. She was born on 2 January 1845 in Hall Street, Tunstall, Staffordshire, UK, and died in 1918. She married Herbert Carter on 24 December 1866, and my grandmother was born 15 January 1888, the ninth of their ten children.
My maternal grandmother, born 15 January 1888 in Newchapel, Staffordshire. I remember her well, although in the days before motorways we only got to visit her once a year.
I don’t know the date of this photo – round about the time of her marriage, I should think. She was a dressmaker, and still made most of her family’s clothes after her marriage. My mother told me that when her elder brother was too exuberant, my grandmother would tie him to her sewing machine with a piece of thread. He could easily have broken it if he tried, but luckily he didn’t realise that, so would sit quietly for a time until he calmed down and she released him.
She had a hard life – when my grandfather returned from the first World War, he had lost a lot of his lungs, and couldn’t go back to his job as a miner.
This photo shows her in her back garden with her dog, Rinty. You may be able to see the crosses and grave stones behind her – the garden backed onto Goldenhill church, St John’s. As a child I used to wander through the waist-high grass to find my grandfather’s grave, my fear being that I wouldn’t be able to find my way back.
In her bathroom she still had her metal dolly tub, although I think she had a primitive washing machine by then. The village was on the edge of Stoke-on-Trent, and high – the winds whistled straight from Siberia I’m sure. I only remember one “summer” when it was warm enough to take off my cardigan.
My grandmother died on my birthday, 18 February 1970, aged 82.
My late mother-in-law was a Golesworthy. Unusual enough to make research slightly easier? That’s until you start looking at the family’s place of origin – Honiton in Devon, UK. Two streets of them in the 1880’s – and they all seem to have loved the name “William”. Still, I’ve found her
I’ve found some of her great-grandparents too, including Charles Golesworthy. But going back beyond his birth in 1820 has been (and remains) a challenge. But that’s what makes genealogy fun!
Easter Family Genealogy 