Bonnie Babies - Past and Present: Sepia Saturday

This week's prompt photograph from Sepia Saturday features babies in a pram.  I have gone for the obvious, with babies down the generations, all sitting up beautifully for the camera - taken  from my own collection and that of my cousin.

THREE LITTLE GIRLS:   1861 to 1906

Ann Elizabeth Shaw (1860-1917) was the great grandmother of my cousin's wife,  She looks so sweet in this photograph taken c.1861. We rarely see a smile in photographs of that time.   Amy was born in Canning Town, Essex to  Henry Shaw and Mary SuzannaWingfield.    At the age of 19, she married Edward Henry Coombs whose family ran a grocery business and a jam factory.  They had ten children between 1880 and 1899.  

 

Above Hilda Florence Coombs, granddaughter of Ann Elizabeth (above), in a photograph  dated on the back as 9.9.1908.   The photographer was J J Hilder of 257 Barking Road, Plaistow, Essex.   

Hilda's father Edward Henry Coombs  was one of ten children with five brothers and four sisters.  He married Ellen Florence Hooker, with Hilda the eldest of  three daughters,  and one son who died in infancy. 

Elsie Oldham, born in 1906 was my mother's second cousin.  Her family had a carters and coal merchant's business in blackpool.  Following her father's death, Elsie took over at the helm with her husband, and  saw the business through the difficult wartime years, combining it with her own hairdressing concern under the name of "Elise".

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     FOUR GENERATIONS  OF MY FAMILY:  1908-200

MY MOTHER 

One of the oldest photograph in my collection shows, on the left, my aunt Edith and on the right my mother Kathleen - taken late 1908. The sisters were born one year and one week apart,  daughters of William Danson and Alice English of Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire.   Aunt Edith played an active role  as my godmother   and the sisters remained close all their lives.  

MYSELF

Following the deaths of both  my parents, I found a number of letters they exchanged in 1944, whilst my father was serving in the RAF as a Code and Cipher Clerk in France. In one letter, Dad asked for a "Photograph of Baby" - and this studio portrait was the result!

 

The Photographer was W. R. Buckley & Son, Regent Studio, Cocker Street, Blackpool.  

Below a more casual pose on the back door step, 1944. 

MY DAUGHTER

Making a speech?  Taken 1973

MY GRANDDAUGHTER  

Keeping up with the news! (Taken 2009)

Goodbye! (Taken 2009)



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Sepia Saturday offers  bloggers the chance to share their history

through the medium of photographs.

Click HERE to see more of this week's photographs from Sepia Saturday bloggers.