Singing is in My Blood - Sepia Saturday

This week's prompt photograph for Sepia Saturday  features a singer in a bar surrounded by an adoring audience.  Well, I have nothing to match that, but family research revealed that singing of a different kind must be in my blood!  

 

In the cast of  Gilbert & Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance"

We were not a musical family in terms of playing instruments, but choral music played an important part in our lives. Researching my family history revealed more singers among my ancestors. 

I always knew from my father that his maternal grandfather John Matthews (above)  was a prominent member of the Methodist Church in Wolverhampton,  but had not delved into research to find out more.  But last year, I  heard, through my blog,  from a distant family connection who wished to pass onto a direct descendant  of John Matthews some memorabilia.  Among  the collection was this  silver crested baton presented to John in recognition of his service to the church. in particular in his role as conductor of the choir. 

 

The tiny inscription reads:   

Presented to John Matthews

By the Choir and Congregation of Wesleyan Chapel, Ladymoor

28.11.04

 

To hold the baton used by my great grandfather was a delight to me, as the love of choral music  has continued down through the family. 

[As a sideline - of course when my small granddaughter saw the baton,  her first reaction was "Oh - Harry Potter's' wand"!]

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My uncle Fred Weston was a choir boy  at Warwick Parish Church.  At the age of seven, my father joined the parish church choir  and continued singing until late in life, wherever he was living.  My mother joined local community choirs, and from the days of my being in a school choir, choral music has remained  one of my main interests. 

 

 My uncle Fred Weston, born 1905  as a choir boy 
He was the eldest child  of Albert Weston and Mary Barbara Matthews. 

Sadly there is no similar photograph for my father John Percy  Weston, who at the age of seven joined the choir at Broseley Church, near Ironbridge, Shropshire.    I was very grateful to  Broseley Local History Society whose website featured transcriptions from the local newspaper at the time the Weston family lived  in the town.   The frequent reports on church activities presented a picture of what Dad could have well been involved in. 

 

 Broseley Church

 The inscription written in the prayer book presented to my father

I persuaded Dad (left)  to write down an account of his early life and later his war time experiences and was pleased to have these, as I have very few photographs prior to his meeting my mother.

He recalled in Broseley, "Our house was next door to the Wesleyan chapel, and when we were in bed, we could hear the church choir practising.  

We had a "palace" organ double keyboard.  Mum was very musical and Dad, who,  as far as i know  had never had a music lesson,  played in Coalbrookdale Brass Band and could also play the violin.  Mum would play the organ on a Sunday night, and Dad the violin  and we would sing hymns from "Ancient & Modern" [The Church of England Hymnbook] and also Methodist hymns."  

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  Dad met my mother, Kathleen Danson  in Blackpool, Lancashire.She came from nearby Poulton-le-Fylde and  her Danson family back to 1736 were baptized, married and buried at St. Chad's Church. where I also was baptized and where Dad sung in the choir.   But in the course of my family history research into the Danson family I discovered  another "singing" connection. .  

                              

St. Chad's Church, Poulton-le-Fylde, noted for the carpet of crocuses in springtime.
 
My great uncle George Danson (1893-1916) was killed on the Somme.  I traced an obituary in the local press and it included the statement " He was a member of the Poulton Parish Church choir" - I never knew that but it delighted me to find this other side to his life. 

                                               

To the current generation of the family: 

One Christmas family get-together, after the meal, we children did our party pieces, with mine on the piano. My young brother (right)  decided to plough his way through all twelve verses of "The Twelve Days of Christmas". 

 He developed hiccups and his long socks kept falling down - this was the days of lads in short trousers, despite the weather.   But he was determined to finish singing the carol, kept pulling his socks up and hickcupping, and by the end, we were all falling about laughing and we never allowed him to forget this occasion!  He did sing in the junior school choir at the Blackpool Music Festivasl - but that was the end of his singing interest.  

Singing in a choir (school, church, community)  has been a key activity throughout my life from primary school days onwards, whether it was folk songs, songs from the shows,  spirituals, carols, sacred music, and Gilbert and Sullivan - musical tastes that still mean a lot to me today. I was very happy to be a chorus girl, with no pretensions to be a soloist - I knew my limitations! 

I have now decided it is time  to "retire" my voice, but music still plays an important part in my life.  Joining a choir is a marvellous form of music making, whatever your age, a great creator of the "feel good factor",  and there is nothing to beat singing with the full blooded accompaniment of an orchestra or organ.   I recommend it! 

The  musical moments and memories live on! 

  

  
In the Roxburgh Singers  - one of many singing groups in  the  Scottish  Borders. 
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    Sepia Saturday gives an opportunity for genealogy bloggers 

       to share their family history through photographs

 Click HERE to read other bloggers' take on this week's prompt below.



 

Portraits on Life - Sepia Saturday

A studio photograph of a young lady and an image of her many years later as an artist  is the double photograph  of this week's Sepia Saturday prompt.        

 

A studio portrait of three sisters Amy, Edna and Lavinia  Dodds of Todmorden, West Yorkshire In the 1911 census Amy was aged 15 (a cotton weaver), Edna 12 (a fustian sewer)  and Lavinia  aged 9. 

The above photograph is  just one out of the fifty I inherited   from my great aunt,  Jenny Danson (left).    Jennie (1897-1986) was the only daughter and last child of James Danson and Maria Rawcliffe of Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire,  born after eight surviving brothers. 

The photographs were taken at local studios,  at a guess  around 1917-1921.  Props were popular with the sitter perched on "rocks" or pedestals, or sitting in ornate chairs against muted  landscape backcloths.     Many of Jenny's photographs  featured young children (friends' offspring?),  and  family groups with young men in uniform, looking apprehensive at the prospect of going to war.      Very fortunately Jenny had written   on the back in pencil her friends' names and I have tried to find more information on the names,  but with mixed success. 

Friendship Photographs

These two photographs of Annie Jolly are typical of the studio style at the time.

There were strong  concoctions  between the Jolly and Danson families. In the 1901 census, Annie  could well be the two  year old Charlotte Annie Jolly, living at Queen's Square, Poulton, daughter of Edward and Jane Jolly. Edward was a joiner, like Jenny's father. Also in the household was Jane's sister Sarah Haydon Lounds, a domestic servant, who married Jenny's  eldest   brother, John Danson.   By the 1911 census Annie Jolly was aged 12, living at Longfield Avenue, Poulton with her uncle Richard Jolly, and his wife Isabella. Jenny's brother William (my grandfather) lived on the same road with his wife and young family. 

Nellie Jolly  - I like this charming photograph, but I cannot  trace anything about Nellie.  I looked under Helen, Ellen etc. but only found an Ellen Jolly born in Poulton, but in 1853. 

Amy Dodd  - the eldest of the three sisters in the first photograph above and a friend of Jenny's youngest brother George, who worked on theW.H. Smith station bookstall at Todmorden and was killed on the Somme in 1916.  

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Portraits of Confirmation  

Dorothy Chisholm was confirmed in St. Chad's Parish  Church, Poulton-le-Fylde.  She  was engaged to Jennie's widowed eldest brother, John, but he was killed in 1917 whilst in  army  training.    Dorothy never married, but the Danson family maintained contact with her throughout her life.  

 

 My husband;s great aunt Violet Hibbert, in a photograph

 taken at  Frank & Hamilton, Ocean Road, South Shields, County Durham. 

 

My husband's mother Ivy White, c.1923, again taken in south Shields.

And pets joined in studio  photographs too! 

My husband's grandmother Alice White, nee Armitage, 

with her granddaughter Maureen, plus the family pet.  

 

 My husband's aunt.  Patti White, with Beauty, 

Reflecting this week's prompt other theme  - Portraits Across the Years 

 

My grandmother Mary Barbara Matthews (1876-1958),  was the third child of John and Matilda Matthews of Wolverhampton in the English Midlands.   John was a  prominent member of the local Methodist church, conducting the choir.

My Nana -  Mary Barbara Weston, nee Matthews, later in life.

My mother, Kathleen Weston, nee Danson (1908-1989) of Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire.  She was apprenticed to a tailor at the age of 14 and was still busy sewing in her 80's.  

Mum still looking elegant in her 80's

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  Sepia Saturday gives an opportunity for genealogy bloggers 

       to share their family history through photographs

 Click HERE to read how other bloggers have interpreted this week's prompt below

Windows on Life - Sepia Saturday

Windows in the classical style plus a close up of a man at a window are the photographs for this week's Sepia Saturday prompt.

One  photograph on my collection immediately came to mind - 

my little granddaughter at the window of  her Wendy house.

 

 A more pensive look here.

 

 First trip on a tram - and looking out of the window.

at Beamish Open Air Museum in County Durham - 

one of our favourite day trip destinations.

 

On a more serious note  - outside the window a special photograph of my grandfather and grandmother  - William Danson and Alice English, taken c.1916 when Grandad was setting  out for war. I never knew my grandmother as she died when I was a baby and this is the only photograph I have of William and Alice together.  

Alice has featured  several times on my blog as she is my major brick wall.  I have never been able to trace her  birth certificate, c.1884  to find out the name of her mother and her early life remains a mystery which I doubt if I will now solve.

 

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With an interest in architecture, Windows feature a lot in our holiday photographs.

Warsaw - a house with decorated walls - open windows here, but no one looking out

 

Where 16th century  French architecture meets the contemporary style of the famous glass Louvre Pyramid. Opened in 1989,  it evoked controversy on many grounds. It now provides the entrance to the Louvre Museum, and somehow I think it works. 

Against the backcloth of a classical building,  a cow "marches" on parade atop of a bus shelter in Warsaw.  The  lull scale  fibre  glass figures are  decorated  by local artists and represent different aspects of city life and culture.  

  The "Cow Parades" have become a popular feature of public art  in cities across the world, adding colour and interest to the surroundings. 

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

 Click HERE to read how other bloggers have interpreted the windows theme.