Happy Family Twosomes - Sepia Saturday

 A little  boy and girl feature in this week's Sepia Saturday prompt photograph.  Cue for me to show  some of the family photos in my collection.  

 

 

 I  know - a threesome not a twosome, but the two little children seated match the prompt so well .  Here are Florence Annie (born 1894),  Lily (born 1886) & William (born 1891)  - children of Henry Bailey & Annie McAffray of Blackpool, Lancashire,  

my great  grandfather James Danson, who was the youngest in the family of nine. Henry, a stone mason, died at the age of 41 in 1903, leaving his young family fatherless.  

 

This photograph is so sweet, but I know next to nothing about it.   It was in the collection of my great aunt Jennie Danson. At least Jennie had written the names of the children  on the reverse as Jesse and Bernard Penington.  I like the seascape background, and is that a spade that Bernard has in his left hand?    

Here are Janie and Jack Riley, c.1912 - great niece and  nephew of my great grandmother Maria Danson née Rawcliffe.    Jack later served in the navy on HMS Chester in the Battle of Jutland in 1916.  

I have  a postcard sent by Jaxck's mother to my great grandmother to say " Jack went out to sea today.  He went in good spirits".  The postmark is difficult to make out but could be 7.?? 16. 

 

  

Sitting on a regal looking chair, is Elsie Oldham,  my mother's second cousin.  Elsie was a member of the Oldham  family business  of carters and coal merchants in  Blackpool, Lancashire.  Here Elsie is with her cousin Joseph Butler standing behind her - presumably in clean boots!

 

 

 

Stuart and Gloria Smith, children of Elsie above -  looking very angelic with their distinctive fair hair.   

 

 

 More Oldham relations  in their knitted outfits.  

 Another  happy picture from my cousin's collection.  The two girls in their knitted dresses  are Dorothy Lilla Oldham (1915-1989) and Edith Nancy Oldham  (1920-2012),  daughters of James William Oldham. and Edith Keymer.  James' parents had  emigrated to New Zealand in 1906 where they ran a wholesale tobacconists and stationery business on Karangahape Road,  Auckland.  

 

 

 

 

 Happy Sisters - Ella and Edith Smith, daughters of Edward Ingram Smith,.  His was a sad story   of  a handsome youth who showed such promise ,but whose service in the First world War resulted in injury, depression and the breakdown of his marriage.

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 I could not feature a post on children, without showing again photographs of my mother's Danson family  who are at the heart of my family history.   

Below is one of the oldest photographs in my collection, taken c.1908 with my mother Kathleen Danson the baby on the right and her older sister Edith on the left.  Just one year and one week separated them in birth and they remained very close sisters all their lives, with Edith becoming my godmother. 

 

   

Edith and Kathleen at the front of a parade in Poulton le Fylde, Lancashire c. 1911.  

 

 Two  solemn little girls  in this photo taken 1916,  as their father William set out for war.  

 

  

Playing in the garden - Edith (seated) & Kathleen, c.1914

 

And finally  - my brother and I  c.1948 

 

And some 67 years later...... 

 

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

  

  

Click HERE to wse favourite family photos from other Sepia Saturday bloggers/  

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