I renewed my Ancestry membership this week. Over the past two years I have let my membership lapse until something prompts me to renew it. This is the second year in a row that has happened because I received private messages from distant relatives that reignited my interest in a particular line.
I began thinking about who I would write about with the DIFFERENT LANGUAGE prompt. As often happens when I start looking through my tree I end telling a tale that needs to be told, and not necessarily the one I was planning to tell.
I found my 4th uncle
James Joshua (Joshua) North
BIRTH ABT 1865 • White Waltham, Berkshire, England
DEATH MAR 1937 • Camberwell, Surrey, England
married toLouisa Ann Flower
BIRTH 13 MAR 1859 • Deptford, Kent, England
DEATH ABT. JAN 1929 • Camberwell, Surrey, England
They were married 16 Nov 1890 St Michael, Burleigh Street, London, England
Joshua was a bachelor, and Louisa a widow.
They were married 16 Nov 1890 St Michael, Burleigh Street, London, England
Joshua was a bachelor, and Louisa a widow.
Louisa's first first husband was a sailor:
2nd husband (my 4th uncle) James Joshua North, known as Joshua, was a Railway Porter.
As I was searching for more information about Joshua and his wife Louisa I was surprised to find a record that Louisa was in a mental hospital admitted on 4 May 1893. She was admitted for mania resulting from the loss of a child. This is the first reference I found to any children for Louisa. I found no records for this first child.
William Griffiths
BIRTH ABT 1851
DEATH BEF. 1890
I haven't found the records of his death, or if the had children. 2nd husband (my 4th uncle) James Joshua North, known as Joshua, was a Railway Porter.
As I was searching for more information about Joshua and his wife Louisa I was surprised to find a record that Louisa was in a mental hospital admitted on 4 May 1893. She was admitted for mania resulting from the loss of a child. This is the first reference I found to any children for Louisa. I found no records for this first child.
On the 14th of April 1899 Louisa & Joshua welcomed twins: Harry & Louise North. A year later, on the 15th of March 1901 they welcomed son: Arthur Joshua North.
Easter is a time to celebrate abundance. That is exactly how Louisa & Joshua must have felt when their twins arrived 12 days after Easter in 1899. Almost a year later, one month before Easter, they had another son. How they must have celebrated the arrival of three miracles in less than a year after their earlier loss.
I found no records of other children for Louisa and Joshua. I found records that Louisa and Joshua resided together until her death in 1929. I found no records that Joshua remarried before he died in 1937.
October 15th is Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Day. Every year I remember the babies born still or lost too soon. When I read the admission record for Louisa in 1893 my heart broke for her. It was a time when there was not a lot of understanding of how miscarriage and infant death happened. There weren't a lot of interventions available. No one talked about it. The expectation was that women didn't dwell on what happened moving forward with more children. There was little understanding of the long-term impact on body and mind. As was typical of the time I found no records for the loss of this infant except the admission to a mental hospital for the child's mother.
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It makes me sad that I found no records that this child was born, loved, and lost.
The language of the heart is timeless. I hear her tears, her loss, her heartbreak. Not all language is spoken. Sometimes it's the feelings that are heard the deepest.
Never forgetting the little ones who didn't get to grow up!
*** I was originally going to write about Twin Speak, but then this blog went a very different direction ***
This is why I search -
Cause ...
You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family you know!
***Any errors are my own. Please send me any updates or corrections via the comments at the bottom of this blog post***
Sources:
October 15 - Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day, Retrieved November 15th 2020 from
https://www.october15.ca/
Infant loss photo photo, Overcoming Setbacks: Dealing with loss and how we recover, Nancy Arroyo Ruffin, Retrieved November 15th 2020 from:
https://nancyruffin.com/2015/10/13/overcoming-setbacks-dealing-with-loss-and-how-we-recover/
Links:
Amy Johnson Crow, 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge
https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/
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Infant loss photo photo, Overcoming Setbacks: Dealing with loss and how we recover, Nancy Arroyo Ruffin, Retrieved November 15th 2020 from:
https://nancyruffin.com/2015/10/13/overcoming-setbacks-dealing-with-loss-and-how-we-recover/
Links:
Amy Johnson Crow, 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge
https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/
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It was only within the last few years that I learned how many siblings of my grandparents died in infancy, because they were in such terrible poverty. It makes me grateful to be born in Canada rather than Poland in the 1930s.
ReplyDeleteThe poverty and trials of the past were so hard on folks of all ages. We are lucky to have been born in modern times and in Canada!
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