My Christmas Card Scrapbooks: Sepia Saturday

I am taking a look this week  at one of my favourite post-Christmas activities - compiling a Christmas Card scrapbook. 

Firstly vintage cards in my collection :  

The postcard above, sent in 1877, was in the collection of my third cousin,  Janet, who made contact with me through the Genes rRunited website - we went onto exchange family memorabilia. The verse on the card reflects the rather Victorian maudlin sentiment of the time, but it is still a lovely picture.

This lovely German Christmas card came from the my husband's family.   His uncle Mattie married a German girl in the 1950's.   

 Another continental card - this time from France, courtesy of cousin Stuart.  

 

A charming little card I picked up in an antique shop.  

 

 

And below two of the many cards sent  back from Flanders Field in World WAr One by my grandfather to his family 1917 and 1918.

 

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My Scrapbook Project

It  seems  a shame to bin so many lovely images on Christmas Cards  that I have come up with my own way of retaining tmy favourite  cards for future pleasure. 

I  began doing this years ago when my daughter was small, with  "Gillian's Christmas Scrapbook" was a way of conveying the Christmas story and traditions in a strong visual style and displaying  cards that had been especially sent to her.  I hand-wrote the words as this was long before the days of computers. The scrapbook came out of the cupboard every Christmas to look through and reminiscence over  and  it became part of  our family tradition, one continued with my granddaughter. 

 

 

Many  years down the line, I had a growing  pile   of cards that I had refused to throw out, so I created something similar in a more adult version calling it "Christmas Kaleidoscope"- annotated this time by the computer, which of course made a huge difference to the style of presentation. 

 

 

 

By then I had the bug, so the next year it was "A Christmas Anthology",  using the cards to illustrate poems, songs and literature relating to Christmas.     

 

 

 

My next project, spread over two scrapbook,  was "A Christmas A-Z"   focusing on a  wide range of aspects of the Christmas story.  What would I do without the internet to help with history and definitions!

 I  do mean to stop - but already my mind is on the next edition  - perhaps looking at the stories behind Christmas carols.  

Since I began, scrapbooking, it  has become  a sophisticated hobby, but I have kept to  a very simple style with  the focus on the illustrations.

So to anyone who sent me a card, it continues to give pleasure long after the 12 days of Christmas have past. You never know, I might have created a family heirloom collection. 

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Sepia Saturday gives an opportunity for genealogy bloggers 
to share their family history through photographs

 

Click HERE to read more Christmas memories

from other Sepia Saturday bloggers. 

 

 

 

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Uncle Harry's Christmas Meal - France 1939: Sepia Saturday

In 2011,  I posted the story of my uncle's wartime Christmas meal.  It is a powerful and poignant tale.  that I feel is worth repeating, with additional images   for this week's Sepia Saturday prompt.  

Harry Rawcliffe  Danson (1912-2001) was the middle child of five, born to my grandparents William Danson and Alice English in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire. His middle name came from his grandmother Maria Danson, nee Rawcliffe.  

 

This signed menu of December 25th 1939,   written in French and typed on very  flimsy paper,  was found among Harry's papers following his death. 

In 1939, Harry was in France with the British Expeditionary Force, 9/17th Field Battery.  In the Sergeant's Mess,  breakfast was cold ham with piccalilli, eggs, coffee and roll and butter;  for dinner  - turkey with chestnuts, pork with apple sauce, potatoes, and cauliflower followed by Christmas pudding, apples, oranges, and nuts, with cognac, rum and beer.  That strikes me now as quite a feast, given the conditions they must have been living in - and a tribute to the catering corps.

Five months later in May 1940.  Harry was one of the many men trapped by the German army on the beaches of northern France. 338,226 soldiers  were evacuated  by a hastily assembled fleet of over 800 boats.  Many of the troops  had to wade out into the sea,  waiting for hours in shoulder-deep water. Some were ferried from the beaches to the larger ships by what came to be known as "the little ships of Dunkirk" - a flotilla   of hundreds of merchant shipping,   small boats, fishing boats, pleasure craft, and lifeboats.  called into service for the emergency.

The British Expeditionary Force had to abandon their tanks, vehicles, and other equipment, and lost 68,000 soldiers during the French campaign.    

How many of those men who signed Harry's Christmas Day menu might well have perished in that operation?

 

Harry far left back row with army colleagues.

 

My mother related how  Harry arrived back home from Dunkirk   still wearing the uniform in which he entered the sea to be rescued.   Harry  never talked about his wartime experiences, but seeing commemoration services or documentaries on TV could bring tears to his eyes, so the memories remained very strong - and that flimsy bit of signed paper, kept for over 60 years, was a potent symbol of his Christmas Day, 1939.

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Harry later served in Africa and Italy. 

 

 

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Harry followed his grandfather into becoming a joiner.  I   remember him making me a miniature table and chairs for my doll's house.  

 

He returned to his joinery trade after the war.  He  had a short lived marriage in the 1940's and never remarried, but continued to live in the home of his childhood, renovating the house, and taking pride in his productive garden

 

i recall him taking his sister out for a Sunday run in his motor cycle and side car.    He then progressed to a car, extending  the driveway, and  turning the former hen house into a garage. 

 

 

 The Danson family home in the 1950s  

 

Harry  lived  to the age of 89.  remaining active to the end of his life.  He sailed a small dinghy off the coast of nearby Fleetwood,  was a keen photographer setting up a dark room in the small spare bedroom. 

Living near Blackpool,  the natural home of ballroom dancing in the UK, Harry enjoyed a lot of time on the dance floor at  the Winter Gardens or on the Tower Ballroom  - and he was never short of partners.  He  retained his good looks to the end of his life !

 With a good friend, neighbour & dance partner, c.1970's. 

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Sepia Saturday gives an opportunity for genealogy bloggers 
to share their family history through photographs.

 

 Click HERE to read memories of Christmas meals 

from other bloggers.

 Copyright © 2024 · Susan Donaldson.  All Rights Reserved

Horses to Horse Power: Sepia Saturday

Each week, Sepia Saturday, provides an opportunity for genealogy bloggers to share their family history through photographs.  

Sepia Saturday's latest prompt photograph features a 1920s lorry. My mind turned immediately to my cousin's Oldham family of Blackpool, Lancashire, who were carters and coalmen down three generations. The business  went from  using horses to horsepower  - and below is their first lorry purchased in 1921. 

The business was founded around 1890, by Joseph Prince Oldham (1856-1921) and steadily became prosperous.  In  1905 it moved to near North Station, Blackpool, Lancashire in a house with a large yard, hay loft, tack room. and stabling for around 7 horses.

 

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In the 1901 census Joseph Prince Oldham (below), son of William Oldham and Sarah Prince,  was described as a self-employed carter and coal merchant. Also in the  household were Joseph's  wife Mary Alice, his 20 year old son John William and three  young daughters, Sarah Alice, Edith and Beatrice, plus also mother-in-law Mary Ann Knowles. 

 

The Oldham family c.1910 - Back: Sarah and John William 

Front:  Father Joseph,  Beatrice, Edith  and mother Mary Alice. 
 

Joseph Prince Oldham with his granddaughter Elsie 

who later took over the business.

An accident at the coal sidings in the railway station resulted in Joseph being blinded and he died in 1921, with his will, signed with his "mark".

 

 Son John William Oldham on one of the carriages

 in the family business.

 Joseph's son, John William Oldham (1880-1939)

Shortly before his death Joseph had purchased the first vehicle (at the top of this page)   which was used alongside the horses and carts until the 1930's when two new vehicles were bought. 

 

Lorry c. 1936



This vehicle  was requisitioned during the Second World War by Governmentfor use by  the Fire Service. It was never returned.

John William Oldham married Mary Jane Bailey (my grandfather's first cousin)   in 1905 at St. John's Church, Blackpool.  The photograph below shows them standing, with seated John's sister Sarah who went onto marry George Butler (front left) who also worked in the family business.   Look at those hats!!

 

 

 The couple  faced tragedy with  when their youngest daughter Hilda  died aged 6 in 1915.  

Family photograph c.1909 with baby Hilda 

and older daughter Elsie. 

On the death in 1939 of John William Oldham,  his daughter Elsie (below) took the helm with her husband Arthur Stuart Smith and saw the business through the difficult wartime years, combining it with her own hairdressing concern as "Elise"  run from the family home.  

 

 

    

Elsie Oldham (1906-1989)  - my mother's second cousin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

The coal merchant business was eventually sold around 1948 to another local firm, thus ending over 50 years of the family concern.   

 

Elsie's daughter Gloria atop one of the last horses.

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 Click HERE to  read this week's blogs 

from other Sepia Saturday blogger.

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New Arrivals in America: Sepia Saturday

 For this week's Sepia Saturday, I focussed on the November theme of New Arrivals and relate the  story of my emigrant ancestors  who arrived  in the  USA in 1886-7  to make a new life for themselves.  

How I Discovered them 

I was browsing online  for the names of my great grandmother's sisters - she had four.  Up popped Alice Rawcliffe  who died in Jamesburg, County Middlesex, New Jersey in 1930.

The Rawclliffe family who married into my mother's Danson family,  had always seemed very firmly based in and around, Blackpool, Fleetwood and Poulton le Fylde, in Lancashire.  How had Alice   come to travel from the coastal small fishing town of Fleetwood, Lancashire  via Liverpool to the teeming hub of Brooklyn,  New York City and onto Jamesburg, New Jersey.

Who was Alice?  

 

Alice (1853-1930) was the  older sister of my great grandmother Maria Rawcliffe in a family of eight daughters - five surviving infancy,  In   1873 she married John Mason and over the next twelve years had six  children, their names reflecting those of close family members - Robert William, Jane Elizabeth, John Thomas, James Richard, Margaret Alice and George Rawcliffe.

But I failed to find the family in census returns from 1891

The American Discovery

 It  came as a complete surprise when  a casual browsing of Rawcliffe names  on Family Search resulted in an  entry for Alice Mason née Rawcliffe (1853-1930) with the statement that she had died  in  Jamesburg, Middlesex County, New Jersey - the first time I was aware of any potential American connection.  All the information fitted with "my Alice" - dates, names, places etc. 

American Research 

I boosted my Ancestry UK subscription for a short term, so I could access American records. The results:

The  New York Passenger Lists on Ancestry and Family Search  revealed  that John  Mason, aged 32 had emigrated from Liverpool in 1886 on the ship Aurania, to be joined a year later on the same vessel  by Alice, aged 34  and now with  six children aged from  11 to 10 months  (plus two pieces of baggage).  How on earth did  she cope on the seven-day voyage?  This was my first revelation too  of  son George Rawcliffe Mason, born in 1885 in Fleetwood.  

 

Google gave me information on the ship Aurania which was built in the Glasgow shipyard of J & G &Thomson  and launched in 1882.  In 1899 it was used as a troop ship, taking soldiers to South Africa to fight in the Boer War.

 The ships arrived at Castle Gardens, New York   - the more famous docking point of Ellis Island did not open until 1892.  

As with much of family history, we can find out the who, where  when  but the "why”is more of a challenge.  The prospect of economic success was a key motivator in making people uproot their lives for a new one,  There was a family story that John's brother , Richard was already in the USA, but I have yet to validate this.  

Life in America 

 The Mason family settled in Brooklyn, New York.  Between 1888 and 1898, Alice had a further five children,  - Arthur Valentine (born appropriately on 14th February 1888 - a reunion baby?) Harold Arthur Victor, Lillian Eveline, Bessie Irene and the youngest Florence Adelaide - their names in sharp contrast to the family names of their siblings, born in England.  Arthur, Bessie and Lillian sadly all died in infancy. Were  the crowded living conditions a factor here? 

The family took out US citizenship in 1895.  

The 1900 census for the City of New York, Brooklyn showed a large Mason household of ten living at 72 Hall Street in what was probably an apartment building with four other families at the same address.  John was described as an insurance agent

 

The 1910 census for New York still found the family on  Hall Street,  Brooklyn, with John working as a labourer at the Customs House. 

At some point the family moved  across the river to Jamesburg, New Jersey. The 1920 census saw a depleted household with John and Alice, now both 66, with their eldest and youngest daughters (Jane  and Florence), and widowed son Robert with  his baby son, also Robert.   

                       

For over 10 years I puzzled over  "Who is this striking family group?"   The photograph mounted on heavy dark card,  came to me from  my great aunt Jennie Danson,  of Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire.    Unlike many of Jennie's photographs, she had not written anything on the back - perhaps because of the dark mount, and there was no photographer's name and address  to indicate where it had been taken.   But it  must surely be of one of of my great grandmother's sisters - Anne, Jane, Alice, or Jennet?  The composition of the family and ages of the children ruled out all but Alice.

 

I put enquiries on various message boards but with no response.

  

Then I set up my blog in 2010  and posted about my mystery photograph.   A year  later came SUCCESS!!  The granddaughter of Florence Mason (the young girl in the above photograph) was pointed to my blog by another relative.  

 

She got in touch and she had the very same photograph  as mine,  but mounted with the name of a photographer in Brooklyn, New York.  

 

We  exchanged e-mails, photographs and information of our ancestors down the generations and remained in touch until her death. Other descendants and I are Facebook friends.

 

Some photographs from the Mason collection.  

John  Mason (Alice's husband)  

with his youngest daughter, Florence

 

• Florence and her husband Charfes Urstadt.  They had six children including Curtis Rawcliffe Urstadt  - his middle name a reminder of his English ancestors.  
  
   
  

  
  
   
   
   It was special to receive a photograph of the Mason family with all eight surviving children. 
   

  Top - Robert, Jenny (Jane Elizabeth), Mother Alice, Father John, and Harold. 

   
  Bottom - Thomas (John Thomas), Alice (Margaret Alice), Florence, George and James .
  
  
  
   
  Alice died in Jamesburg in 1930;  her husband John in 1937.

So it is all thanks to the power of the Internet and of blogging, that my mystery photograph was eventually identified and I discovered the story of my first  emigrant ancestors. It pays to be patient in family history research.

The challenge remains as I aim to trace further my American cousins down the generations.

Adapted from posts first published in 2011-2013.  
 

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Sepia Saturday gives bloggers an opportunity to share
their family history and memories through photographs.

 

 

 

Click HERE to see posts  from other Sepia Saturday bloggers