Sunday, February 01, 2015

Memories of Grandma

One hundred and twenty-five years ago today, in the Lancashire cotton town of Darwen, a little girl was born and given the unusual and pretty name of Rosetta. She was the first child of Swain Fish and his wife Hannah and by the time her sister Mary was born, there would be six brothers and twenty years between the two sisters.

On Rosetta’s birth certificate her father is described as a journeyman brickmaker and over the years the family moved many times from rented house to rented house, as first her father, and then her brothers, looked for work in various brickworks.

Three of the Fish brothers at the brickworks

One of these moves took the family across the Pennines from Lancashire to Yorkshire, where the teenaged Rosetta met a handsome young man, a year older than her, called Tom Sutcliffe. A friendship sprang up between them, which gradually deepened into courtship – an unusual courtship, conducted largely by postcard, after work took Rosetta’s family back to Darwen.



Like many of the working-class girls and women in Lancashire, Rosetta worked in the cotton industry. In her spare time she loved to play the violin and nearly 50 years later I began to learn on this same violin, which one of my sisters still has today.

After their years of long-distance courtship, Rosetta and Tom were finally married in 1915 and their daughter Annie, my mother, was born the following year. 

Rosetta and Annie

Tom was serving in the Army in France and Belgium and continued to keep in touch with his wife by postcard, some severely functional and others extraordinarily pretty.



Five years later, in 1921, their second child, Jack, was born and sadly died soon after birth. This tragic loss precipitated a breakdown in Rosetta’s health severe enough to require hospitalisation. 



Annie’s childhood was overshadowed by her mother’s continuing ill-health, as can be seen from the high number of absences noted on her school report not long before she left school.


Indeed my many memories of my beloved grandmother, the only one I ever knew, are of a woman whose health was never robust and I think this shows in the photos of her. 

My grandparents, my big sister and me

Despite her fragile health Rosetta was devoted to her family and my sisters and I had many happy seaside holidays with Grandma and Granddad. Other memories are of Grandma teaching me to knit and to play cards (she was a demon at rummy!) and of her delicious baking, especially her incomparable parkin.

Oh, we did like to be beside the seaside...

Living next-door as they did for most of my childhood, she and Granddad were an essential part of life for me, always there, ready to listen, when I came home from school with things to share. I also used to love to listen to her in turn, especially when she talked to her siblings and cousins, because then she would lapse into broad Lancashire dialect, which I sometimes struggled to follow.

Early in 1960 Grandma began to show signs of her final illness and she died at home, nursed devotedly by her husband and daughter, in December that year. I was fourteen when she died and part of my childhood died with her, but thankfully my memories of her are still strong and vivid.

The last photo of Grandma

One of the most cherished of these dates from her last birthday. I sat beside her on the bed to which she was already increasingly confined and asked her what it felt like to be 70. She turned to me and smiled and told me she didn’t feel 70, because somehow, when we reach adulthood, we age faster on the outside than on the inside. She thought she’d stopped ageing on the inside a long time ago. As a still-new teenager, for whom every birthday was hugely significant, this made no sense to me and I said so. “It will one day,” she replied. “Just wait and see.”

Fifty-four years after her death and a little over a year short of my own 70th birthday, I now know just what she meant. Wise words, Grandma, wise words… 

Grandma and Granddad as I love to remember them


80 comments:

  1. What a wonderful post, Perpetua. I'm amazed that you still have those postcards sent by your grandparents to each other, and can find them after your recent house move!!!!!

    You have very much benefited by being the eldest child. My mother was the youngest of six children & I'm her youngest child. As a result, I never really knew my grandparents, with one exception - my paternal grandmother, who sadly outlived both her children, my father & my aunt.

    Is that you on the right in the photo of entitled 'The last photo of Grandma' - on Grandma's left?

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    1. I'm glad you enjoyed it, Ricky. I certainly loved writing it. Luckily I didn't have to search for any of the photos or postcards as DH scanned them all years ago, when he compiled a family archive to mark the Millennium. We do still have the originals, but they are definitely packed away in a box somewhere!

      Yes, being the eldest of my mother's children (with an older half-sister) means that I have the longest and clearest memories of my maternal grandparents, the only ones I knew. My youngest sister was only 3 when her Grandma died and doesn't really remember her.

      Yes, that's me on Grandma's left - holding her hand. :-)

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    2. You may not have realised it, Perpetua, but I have retained one or two very strong impressions of Grandma, despite being hardly more than a toddler when she died. Read below!

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    3. I'm very glad to hear that, Marion, as you were very young when she died. I know I only have a few clear memories from when I was that age.

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  2. I inherited the same rhesus negative gene that led to Rosetta losing both Jack and another pregnancy before term. As with all cases of haemolytic disease of the newborn the first child - our mother - was unaffected. I also inherited Rosetta's tendency to emotional ill health; looking back over the stories Mummy told me about her it seems very likely that she too was bipolar, as she had long periods of depression interspersed with some spells when she was very sociable, talkative and lively, probably too much so. I also inherited her engagement ring which fitted me perfectly - I have since passed it on to one of our nieces.

    I distinctly remember the time she spent during her last illness in bed downstairs, even though I was only three years old. The bed was by the window in the front room, with the head near the door, positioned so she could see passers-by and visitors arriving. She wore a green zip-up candlewick dressing gown and used to like to drink lime cordial in water, in a green mug, which she mixed by swirling it around in the cup. Such a vivid memory.

    I love that photo of all my sisters taken at the seaside. Granddad looks so smart and distinguished. Mummy said that people referred to him as "one of nature's gentlemen". I missed a lot being born so much later, especially our grandparents.

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    1. Do you know, I never knew that Grandma was rhesus negative! The things I didn't learn because they weren't talked about when I was still at home would fill a book. You may have missed a lot by being born later, but you also benefited from being at home with Mummy when she became willing to talk about these things, which was long after I'd left home. You also, more than any of us, inherited Rosetta's looks.

      I'm so glad you remember something of her last months. Yes, you're quite right about the position of the bed. It was already downstairs when she had her last birthday and I had that conversation with her.She was wearing her green dressing-gown in that last photo that was taken of her with us all, but I don't remember the lime-juice. Perhaps she drank it while I was at school?

      The seaside photo is one of the best I have of them both. Granddad was always distinguished-looking and smart and so was Grandma when she was well. There are earlier photos of her looking really elegant in a very striking hat.

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    2. There were many anecdotes Mummy had carried from her childhood and adolescence that she didn't - perhaps couldn't - offload until "taking things through" became more the way life was lived, in the 1970s. As for the rhesus negative thing, it was more that we worked it out backwards, from my being found to be A- to Mummy's memories that Jack had been jaundiced and then died. Modern medicine, or more precisely, the way medical knowledge is no longer the preserve of just the doctors, ministering to an ignorant and grateful populace, that we could make sense of what must have happened to mummy's neonate siblings, for them not to survive.

      I have a photo of Rosetta posed as though playing her violin, when she was a pretty Edwardian young lady, with her brother George "singing" from a sheet of music, taken in a studio. It hangs above the piano, appropriately. Our hands are identical. Strange how the genes land after being thrown up in the air!

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    3. I'm sure you're right, Marion. I didn't know about the miscarriage either. I'm guessing that Mummy wouldn't have wanted to talk about such things with you younger ones around and perhaps also not when Daddy was alive.The huge changes that the 60s and 70s brought came to late for me to have that kind of one to one conversation with her, as I was always visiting with DH and the children after that. My loss.

      I know and love the photo you mean. Is it too big to scan?

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  3. What a wonderful introduction to your grandmother...love shines in every line of it.
    Just think, a courtship lasting years, mostly by post and then when finally able to marry her husband is called up....the loss of children...and she never lost her capacity for love.
    You were so very lucky to have grown up with them so close by...and isn't your grandfather a good looking man!

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    1. I'm glad you enjoyed it so much, Helen. Yes, I loved them both very much and Granddad was indeed very handsome to the end of his life. The prolonged courtship wasn't unusual in those days when average age at first marriage was several years higher than it was when I was a young woman. Despite her ill-health Grandma was a huge and loving part of my life and I inherit my love of knitting from her.:-)

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  4. This is a wonderful post - and you've added to my resolve to do something about my family photos and the bits of their stories that I know! Thank you.

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    1. Thanks, Christine. The hard work of sorting and scanning these photos and documents was done by DH when he compiled a family archive to mark the Millennium. Just don't underestimate how absorbing and time-consuming it can be to make sense of it all.

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  5. Perpetua, what a lovely and loving tribute to your grandmother on her birthday. I enjoyed reading every word of it, wondering at the long, long courtship, through letters, the separation of war (my, how those cards home were censored). My paternal grandmother lived with us for 19 of my first 20 years, and know how fortunate I was in that. Thank you for sharing this.

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    1. Thanks, Penny. I'm glad you enjoyed it so much. The inspiration for it came as I walked home from church yesterday morning and realised the significance of the day. Thanks to DH's hard work in scanning the material years ago, it was very satisfying to put together this outline of her life. Yes, we who lived in such close proximity to our beloved grandmothers were indeed very fortunate.

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  6. That was so very interesting, Perpetua. Your grandmother was a beautiful young woman - I love the photo of her as a young mother, with your then-tiny mother. You are fortunate to have memories of your grandparents.

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    1. Thanks, Pondside, she was indeed beautiful and the photo of her proudly showing off her new baby is one of my favourites too. I never knew my father's parents, but have always been grateful for the close relationship with my mother's.

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  7. ........and I meant to say that I had to look up Parkin - it sounds delicious!

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    1. My younger sister has just sent me the recipe which will appear on the blog in due course. :-)

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  8. This made me quite emotional, Perpetua. Quite a few similarities with my own grandparents; your lovely words and way of recounting the love of your family and the sorrows and joys held within; and the exchanges that follow with your sister. A very lovely birthday post. And I tend to agree with Helen's observation about your handsome grandfather! Axxx

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    1. Awww, you big softie, Annie. ;) I certainly felt quite emotional as I wrote it and when reading all the comments, especially my sister's memories and extra knowledge. It's all a very long time ago now,, but the love never dies. As for my grandfather, he was undoubtedly one of the most handsome men I've ever known and as my sister said, truly one of nature's gentlemen.

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  9. Hello Perpetua,

    This is such a beautifully tender post. You clearly remember your grandparents with great fondness and they obviously had a significant role in your early childhood. This is such a wonderful legacy to have.

    It is amazing that you still have the old postcards and school reports which were written so very long ago. They hold such lovely memories For you and we can well imagine that to look back on them today, especially, is a very moving experience.

    And, how wise your grandmother was. One does indeed so often feel several decades younger in one's thoughts, ideas and imagination but without the energy or recklessness of youth to carry them out. Perhaps that is just as well. But, what a wonderful legacy they have given you and, we are sure, you give the same to the current generation.

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    1. Hello Jane and Lance,

      I'm glad you enjoyed my reminiscences so much. Yes, I remember my grandparents very fondly indeed and have always been grateful to have grown up with them so close, both geographically and emotionally.

      My mother kept her parents' mementos with great care and when she died they came to my sisters and myself. DH scanned many of them some years ago, in case the originals disintegrated or were lost and it is my stock of scanned images that I drew on for this post.

      Yes, Grandma was very wise in her advice to me and I've proved the truth of her words over and over again. I can only hope that some of my own words will live on in the memories of our three grandsons, whom sadly we see far less frequently than my grandparents saw their granddaughters.

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  10. A wonderful post. Unfortunately, I don't remember any of my grandparents (no, I have a vague recollection of my paternal grandfather so vague that it may just be imagination). It would have been great to have grandparents living next door.

    February 1st was the 30th anniversary of my beloved father's death.

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    1. Thanks, Susan. It seems to have struck a chord with many people. It's sad that you don't really remember your grandparents, as there is something special in the relationship between a child and her parents' parents.

      I'm sure your memories of your dear father are still strong and vibrant, despite the 30 years since his death.

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  11. What a lovely post, Perpetua. I lost my grandma round about the same age as you, but never knew her well as she lived 200 miles away. You're lucky to have grown up so close to yours. She sounds a wonderful woman.

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    1. Thanks, Sarah. I loved my grandmother very much and was lucky to have her close company like this. Unfortunately we live some distance from all our grandsons, so don't see them as often as we would like to.

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  12. Oh what a wonderful tribute to your grandmother, Perpetua. I enjoyed it all very much, including the above conversation with your sister. Your grandmother was a very attractive woman, and I can see you take after her, too. What fun to see you wearing a pageant sash - bringing back memories for me, too, doing the same thing at the same age :) The postcards from WW1 are a wonderful treasure - we have some of them from my grandparents too. Thank you for a great post!

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    1. Thanks, Patricia. I'm glad you enjoyed it and had some happy memories brought to mind. Yes, my sisters and I can have some long conversations, even on my blog. :-) The pageant sash marked me out as a past Rose Queen at our Congregationalist chapel. We were obviously on our way to or from that year's ceremony when the photo was taken, as my next sister is wearing her long, white dress as retiring Rose Queen, while the next youngest is dressed as an attendant. It was a very elaborate and enjoyable annual village event. As for the postcards, those embroidered ones are simply beautiful and my grandmother treasured them all her life.

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  13. That was a lovely post Older Sis and interesting to read younger Sis's memories of Grandma also.

    Although only nine at the time I remember us all being very near Grandma when she had her last illness and the day she died - the doctor coming into us after giving Grandma a pain killing injection and saying that she did not think she would wake up again - how much more natural and personal than a hospital death.

    A very late flowering rose was picked from the climbing rose near our door to put in Grandma's coffin that December 1960.

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    1. I'm glad you enjoyed it, PolkaDot, as it was a spur of the moment post, brought about by my realising as I walked back from church that it was the 125th anniversary of Grandma's death.

      Living next-door to her all through her last illness was an unforgettable experience for us all. I remember that our eldest sister came to stay for the last 10 days of Grandma's life, so that she could give her the morphine injections she needed all the time by then. I also remember that Granddad didn't go to bed at all between her death and the funeral, but slept in his armchair in the front room where she had died and where her coffin lay. Thank you for reminding me about the rose, a detail I had forgotten.

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    2. You are obviously a lot older than you appear...
      about 140 by my calculations... 8-() ;-)
      Your Gran sounds a wonderful woman...
      I learnt a lot of my cooking skills from mine...
      including how to brew horribly alcoholic Ginger Beer...
      6.5% ABV... no ginger beer plant for her!!
      And it wasn't' sweet, just very gingery!
      I never knew that Grandfather... he'd run off in the interwar years...
      leaving Gran to bring up their three kids...
      which, I reckon she did very well!

      Approching seventy.. "she didn’t feel 70, because somehow, when we reach adulthood, we age faster on the outside than on the inside."...
      then act your shoe size, not your age...
      British sizes when you want to be totally irresponsible...
      Metric when you need to be sober, well judged and youth-full!

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    3. And I forgot to say how nice the post was....
      Oh... and we have a friend... over seventy-five and approaching eighty fast...
      who still hurls himself down mountains on a pair of planks at this time of the year...
      in fact, I think that he is in Austria or Switzerland at the moment...
      he is VERY difficult to keep track of!!

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    4. Tim, there are times I FEEL 140, but not often, thank goodness. :-) Yes, Grandma was a lovely woman and Granddad adored her. Sadly she only taught me how to make ginger parkin, not ginger beer. I'm sorry your Gran was left to be mother and father to her children.

      I love the idea of taking my shoe size as a guide to behaviour. Do I feel 7 or 40 today? ;-) Sadly, however youthful I feel, I'll never be found hurling myself down a mountain-side on skis in my 70s. I'm more likely to follow the example of my mother-in-law who went swimming regularly until she was in her late 80s.

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  14. I have sent you my version of Rosetta's Parkin Recipe that you may wish to add to your blog Older Sis - Grandma would be tickled at the thought of her recipe being shared world wide!

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    1. Thanks for this. I'll get it onto a page of its own as soon as I can.

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  15. Dear Perpetua - your post has had me reflecting on how different life is for us today compared with that of our grandparents. When they retired they were already old and worn out having mostly lived a hard life. No centrally heated houses for them, washing machines, or the luxuries we take for granted. Pensions were small so not much money to manage on, and no form of independent travel. They were confined to the home and their local community - no galavanting off to France, Scotland and Wales for them!!! Seventy of course was considered a very good survival age, but not today. I recall my paternal grandparents golden wedding party which was a rare occasion with photographs in the local newspaper. Today even diamond wedding anniversaries are common place.
    We are so fortunate in comparison, not only do we live longer, but also we have a much better quality of life. We should count our blessings.

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    1. You sum up these differences perfectly, Rosemary. After long working lives, often starting at 13 or 14, retirement was often much shorter than we expect today. My grandfather died 5 years after my grandmother, at the age of 76, and neither of my parents lived beyond 70.By the time they retired money was a little more plentiful and they enjoyed some holidays and home improvements, but for my grandparents' generation life was often very circumscribed. I promise you, I count my blessings every day.

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  16. Such a beautiful post Perpetua. Your grandmother was a beauty. I am glad you have warm memories. My Gran died when I was around 14, and I missed her terribly. She was very wise in saying that we are not as old on the inside as the outside. In my heart I do not feel near the almost 72 years I am. My outside hurts, but my inside yearns for adventures that sadly will never be taken.

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    1. Thanks, Bonnie. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Yes, Grandma was a lovely young woman and her fine bone structure is still evident even in those last photos, after a life of ill-health. I missed her terribly too - I think the early teens is a difficult time to experience such a bereavement. I've never forgotten her insight about ageing - I think I stopped getting older inside around my late 30s, but the outside hides the fact. :-)

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  17. What a wonderful post, Perpetua. The love you had for your grandmother shines through with every word you wrote. She sounds like she was a very special woman, and what a joy it must have been to live next door to her. I especially love what she said about how we age faster on the outside than on the inside. Thank you sharing with us about her.

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    1. Thanks, Kristie. One of the many wonderful things about blogging is being able to share something of the people who matter to us and keep our memories alive. I loved my Grandma dearly and she always made me feel special, which is a wonderful gift to give a shy child such as I was. I'm a knitter because she taught me how and that is another great gift of hers.

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  18. A touching post Perpetua.
    Sadly, My maternal grandmother died, when my mother was young. Someone in the family has a photo of me on my grandpa's knee.
    I am thankful for my loving parents, that I miss so much. My 3 elder children had their love and were very close.. we lived next door to each other.
    lovely to have these memories Perpetua.
    I am 2 years of 70.. Gosh.. i never thought i would get this far.
    Our life styles are different today.
    xxxxx val

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    1. Thanks, Val. Like your mother, my father lost his mother very young and his father when he was in his 30s, so I never new my paternal grandparents. This meant that we really treasured the Grandma and Granddad we did have. Our two children can remember all their grandparents, though they lived quite a long way from us, and in their 40s they still have one grandmother, my dear mother-in-law.
      Yes, isn't it odd to think we are now so old when we don't feel at all old inside? We are lucky to live when life expectancy is so good.

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  19. Hari OM
    You totally caught your audience with this reminisce/history Perpetua! And I immediately thought of Marion with the facial resemblance...clearly there was a much stronger link even than that. I, on the other hand, am the one who is Mother's Mother all over again. Just can't escape those genes....sigh.... thank you for sharing this and hope you are continuing to settle well in the new place. YAM xx

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    1. Yes, I think I did, Yam, and I'm glad everyone has enjoyed it so much. Interesting that you spotted the resemblance between Marion and Rosetta. Grandma used to tell me when I was young that I was the image of her mother, Hannah. The genes get us every time. :-)
      We're feeling more and more settled now, thanks, and really appreciate having a house which is easier to heat in this cold weather!

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  20. Thank you for this lovely blog. Families are so precious.

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    1. They really are, Molly, and I'm glad you enjoyed my memories of my dear grandmother.

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  21. Love your post. The photograph and post cards are wonderful. I wish I had more pictures of my grandmothers. I do have a series of letters written by my great-grandmother and sent back to her family (where I don't know). Somehow they had gotten back to my grandmother and I ended up with them. I was surprised when reading one of them when she (my great grandmother) remarked that she was expecting another confinement in the coming months and I realized by the date that the baby that was due would have been my grandmother.

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    1. Thanks, Vic. My sisters and I are lucky to have so many mementos of our grandparents and scanning means of course that we can share them so easily. To have a whole series of letters from as far back as your great-grandmother is something special. Letters can be so vivid, but they are very fragile and not many survive as long as this. Even the postcards sent by my grandparents are very faded and worn after over a hundred years. This is living history and we must treasure it.

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  22. I enjoyed this post so much. Rosetta was a very special woman. I really love that you have so many wonderful artifacts from her life, it's fascinating to look at them. You must cherish every bit you have from her. Thank you for sharing.

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    1. You're very welcome, Jennifer. Yes, I treasure every photo and memento and my sisters and I have scanned most of them so they can be preserved and shared between us, but there's nothing like actually handling and reading the originals. The lace-decorated postcards from World War 1 are particularly beautiful and unusual and Grandma kept them very carefully.

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  23. This is a really wonderful post P. The photo of Rosetta with your mother as a baby is just beautiful. I have said on fb, how great I think the whole thing is, particularly having those wonderful post cards. I love the idea that you have the cards that they wrote, you can see their handwriting, and somehow that brings you closer to them. I particularly enjoyed the exchange between you and your sisters, pooling knowledge, even after all these years. Brilliant stuff. jx

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    1. I knew you, with your passion for family history, would appreciate this, Janice. I too love the photo of Rosetta with her new daughter and looking at the lace-trimmed baby dress, I wonder whether it was a christening photo? We sisters all have some of the mementos, hence the scanning to preserve and share them. As for the exchanges of information between us sisters, I'm always learning something new from their memories of their different experiences. It's so true that we all have a unique perspective on people and places and we're never too old to learn. :-)

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  24. I am so glad I didn't miss this post,Perpetua. One of my grandmothers lived next door to me, too, growing up, and there was such a special bond between us. I really delighted in your photos and memories, and it is interesting how we slowly grow into our own awareness of time and age! I was very close to my mother-in-law and I comment all the time to my husband that I wish she were here to re-visit some of the conversations we shared. There were so many things I didn't understand at the time, that now are really clear to me! I think we hope that when we're gone our grandchildren will be left with the same wonderful memories, and hopefully a little wisdom, too. Thank you for reviving some of my own sweet memories, my friend.

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    1. Thanks, Debra, I'm glad to have brought back some of your own good memories of your grandmother. Yes. we who had that close geographical and emotional nearness are fortunate and I wish I lived close enough to my own grandsons to see them more often. You know from my blog that my own dear mother-in-law is still alive and I have always got on incredibly well with her - another big blessing in my life. Like you I can only hope that I will leave good memories and a little wisdom with my three lovely grandsons.

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  25. I really enjoyed reading this post P. Very poignant and the photos are wonderful.

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    1. Thanks, BtoB. I loved writing it and sharing some of our treasured mementos.

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  26. 70 is not old. It might have been in the 60s but 70 is the new 60 now. Or something like that.
    Your grandma lived to a then respectable age in spite of her ailments. Perhaps she was on those cracked pitchers Beloved is always talking about. I never knew either of mine, they both died before I was born.

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    1. Well, I sincerely hope 70 isn't old, Friko, because I'll be there soon despite feeling far too young to own to such an age. My grandmother's ill-health was as much mental as physical and she was also fortunate to have survived cancer once, before succumbing to it the second time. Interestingly, it was the high infant and child death rate which made life expectancy so low when my grandmother's generation was growing up.Her siblings and cousins almost all lived to a good age too, most of them well beyond 70.

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  27. This is a lovely post, Perpetua, which I read slowly as it was very interesting. I felt I knew a lot about her and the close bond you had with her. You must treasure all the momentos you and your family have of her and your grandfather and the last two photos particularly touched me. That generation went through so many hardships and we admire their fortitude. If we were fortunate to have been closely involved in their lives during our childhood and even teenage years there will be many fond memories to draw on and be grateful for; the listening ear, the skills that were taught us and the wise words spoken to us.

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    1. Thanks, Linda. I'm glad you enjoyed it. You are right about the hardships my grandmother's generation lived through. Growing up in working-class Lancashire before WW1 wasn't easy, then living through two wars separated by the poverty of the Depression. It was only in the last few years of her life that she benefited from the welfare state and greater financial security. I feel blessed that I knew her so well and have so many wonderful memories of love and understanding and also fun.

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    2. A wonderful post Perpetua. I admired your Grand dad's fair isle cardigan:)
      But you have a wonderful set of mementos ; the postcards are a real treasure. I was lucky to remember one grand mother [paternal] and grand father [maternal] who were both in their 80's when I was about eleven, but they are shadows in my mind as it was expected we 'behave like ladies' [be seen and not heard!] in their presence. I think I missed out on what you enjoyed.

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    3. Thanks, Shirley. It was good to get those memories down in print. The fair-isle Granddad was wearing would have been a waistcoat, rather than a cardigan, to mark the fact it was summer. That said I don't think I ever saw him in a public place without a jacket, whatever the weather. It was a more formal age, as you show very clearly in your comment about the behaviour expected of you in your grandparents' company. Thankfully we were allowed to be ourselves with our grandparents and have so many happy memories because of this. I think we were very fortunate.

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  28. I'm so glad I'm back to being able to comment again because this is one of the nicest posts I've read for a long time. It brings back memories of my own grandparents and childhood (you always seem to manage to do this with your posts). I am only a few years younger than you so we are of the same era, with similar memories. And how wonderful to still have all those postcards.

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    1. Thanks, Ayak. It's lovely to see you back commenting. It must be so frustrating to be able to read, but not comment. I'm glad you enjoyed my childhood reminiscences. I think we of a certain age have a lot in common, whatever our backgrounds, so memories from one easily evoke memories for the other. The postcards are a family treasure, looked after by one of my sisters, but shared digitally with the rest of us.

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  29. I loved reading this post. It was a treasure.

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    1. Thanks, Sally. It was lovely to plan, going through all the photos, and to write and brought back memories very strongly.

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  30. What a beautifully written and documented post. I love how you included the different memorabilia, and the final message.

    A small coincidence: my grandmother also played the violin, and I learned to play on her violin -- once I got to a full-sized one -- which I still own, and occasionally use, to this day.

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    1. Thanks, Betty. I've written a few very personal posts like this and have enjoyed drawing on all the photos and mementos we have of the people concerned. They conjure up memories so strongly and one of the most vivid of my grandmother is that birthday conversation with her wise words.
      What a nice coincidence that you too learned the violin on your grandmother's instrument. Sadly I haven't even tried to play for many years.

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    2. I have found it very difficult to find suitable amateur orchestra opportunities in France, so I don't play much myself, although I have performed a few times with groups here in Aveyron.

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    3. Am I right in thinking that amateur music is mainly organised by the local ecoles de musique in France, Betty? Here in the UK there seem to be amateur groups galore, though they are more difficult to find in very rural areas like Mid-Wales.

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    4. Yes, you are right, which makes it very complicated (and also very expensive) to participate. One musical activity that works (fairly) well outside of the Ecoles de Musique is choirs, but there is not much instrumental music done outside of the hallowed Ecoles -- maybe in big cities, but certainly not in medium-sized ones.

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  31. I love the photo of your grandma with your mother as a baby. I can only imagine the life-changing sadness that comes from losing a child.

    How wonderful that you still remember these stories and with the photos have made a fitting tribute to your ancestors. I hope other family members have also read and enjoyed this post.

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    1. Hello Sybil and I'm glad you enjoyed my memories. Yes, Grandma's life and health were never the same after she lost Jack and it was very hard on Granddad too.
      We don't have a huge stock of family photos and memorabilia, but what we have we treasure and like to share. My memories of my grandparents are very vivid, even after all these years and the rest of the family seem to have enjoyed the post too. :)

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  32. I really enjoyed this post. Your grandmother was quite a lady. You were so lucky to have your grandparents close by. I think my daughters saw their grandparents in Paris only twice in their life time. I enjoyed all the old photos and the postcards, of course. I have a couple of embroidered postcards as you showed – they were popular at the time.
    70 is certainly not old, when you have good health. Anna Mary Robertson Moses, the American folk art painter, started her first canvas at 76 and then painted for 25 more years. Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the international Hare Krishna movement, was 69 years old when he started the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. I remember a friend in San Francisco who worked for an 85 years old scientist who made discoveries on plague at the time, so 70 is still full of promises! That was a beautiful post Perpetua.

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    1. Thanks, Vagabonde, I'm glad you enjoyed the post and was sure you'd like the postcards. :) Yes, I was very fortunate to live so close to my grandparents and spend so much time with them. Sadly, my three grandsons all live about 4 hours drive away and we don't see them as often as we would like.
      It was encouraging to be reminded how much people can achieve when they are what used to be thought of as old. I shall hold on to your statement that 70 is still full of promises as I don't intend to stop learning and enjoying life for a long time yet.

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  33. Oh, wasn't she pretty, all her life! And how beautifully everyone was taught to write in that generation: a life-skill which sadly has been lost. I so enjoyed this tribute to your grandmother. She was a few years younger than my great-granny, also from a Pennine cotton family, and also an accomplished amateur musician. Indeed, family legend has it that my great-grandfather fell in love with the sound of her singing through an open window before he even laid eyes on her. These touching family stories, over a century old now, are important to remember while there is still a living thread of remembrance.

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    1. Thanks, DB. I'm glad you enjoyed it and agree that it's such a shame that beautiful handwriting is almost a lost art. Yes, Grandma was a very pretty woman, with lovely bone structure which of course lasts forever. How interesting that our (great) grandmothers came from such similar backgrounds and shared a love and talent for music. What a touching story of your great-grandfather falling in love with his future wife's singing before ever seeing her. That is really one to treasure and share.

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  34. This was truly a lovely post!
    Your grandmother was very beautiful ,,,
    I really enjoyed this ...thank you!

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    1. Thanks, Margie. I'm glad you enjoyed reading it. I really enjoyed writing it and found the memories flooding back once I started. Yes, Grandma was a beautiful woman. I wish I'd inherited her looks.

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