Family history :

Do you remember way back in February when I moved house ? I’m sure I told you that I had grand plans for the garden... My lovely dad has been staying with us this week, creating a wonderful deck  for us using reclaimed timber. I intend to give you a full update on that, with lots of before and after pictures later on in the week, but before that I tell you about something else we’ve been up to...

My aunt in Canada recently scanned some of our old family photo’s and put them on a cd. Dad and I have had a few late nights looking through them and recounting the stories attached.
The pictures span the period from the early 1900’s up to the 1960’s.

This is the earliest of the photo’s,  and shows my great-grandparents Annie and Aaron (in about 1910), with their two eldest children.  If you look carefully at Aaron, you will see that he is missing his right arm.  He was the unfortunate victim of an industrial accident in a sawmill when he was only twelve. Luckily for him, the family had a little bit of money set aside and were able to send him to university, as he was no longer able to work in the sawmill. He spent the remainder of his career as a teacher.

The second picture in the series shows my grandmother Marie, at her graduation in 1925.
She had a distinguished career, firstly as a district nurse in the extreme north of Canada (undertaking her rounds by a combination of dog-sled, horse and bush plane).  With the onset of the second world war, she worked in England, caring for the injured in London’s hospitals.

The pictures below (taken later on in her career) shows her in an interesting combination of clothes, wearing her district nurses uniform (including shoes, cape and wide brimmed hat), with leather riding chaps over the top.

J’s record of the week :

‘Everything stops
for tea.’

Written by

Al Hoffman

After deciding to feature my old family pictures in the blog this week, I just had to choose a retro song for my record of the week. My grandmother, Marie would have been 107 this year. One of my favourite memories of her, is reminiscing about her war time experiences, when I was about ten. The upshot of which was in her teaching me the words to this song – one of her favourites  ! It was written by Al Hoffman in 1935 for the film ‘Come out of the pantry.’  Thanks Marie ! Jerushah X