Five on Friday

It's Friday so I'm joining in with  Amy at Love Made my Home for this week's Five on Friday.  Click on the link at the bottom of this post to find others who are joining in too.

I thought I'd share five of my ancestors with you today

1.  Alexander Joseph Limb (1884 - 1954)

Born in Awsworth, Nottinghamshire he was my grandfather on my mother's side of the family.  He married my grandmother Florence Mary Stubbs in May 1906 at the Baptist chapel in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.  They lived in Shirebrook and grandad worked at the colliery where he looked after the pit ponies.  The child in this photo was my mother's brother William Edward who had been named after my great grandfather William Edward Limb who was killed in a pit cage accident at Shirebrook Colliery in March 1907.  My grandfather had the sad duty of identifying his father and registering his death.  Just a week later he was registering the birth of my mother's sister.  Unfortunately little William Edward died of meningitis in 1910.  Grandad was always known as Joe,  his first name Alexander comes from his mother's side of the family who moved to Loughborough in Leicestershire from Kirkaldy near Fife, Scotland early in the 1820s. My mother used to say that when she was a child there was always a photo of a man with a big white beard who was wearing a kilt on the wall.  She never knew why until many years later, just before she died, I found the Scottish connection.  I wonder what happened to that photograph?  

 2.  Joseph Limb (1837 - 1914)

My great great grandfather Joseph Limb was born in Shipley Wood near Heanor in Derbyshire and was baptised in 1837 at the Shipley Wood Primitive Methodist Chapel.  He married Alice Reeve, who already had a daughter Sarah Ann, in Awsworth in Nottinghamshire on Christmas Day 1860.  The family moved from Awsworth to Staveley and then back to Awsworth before settling in Shirebrook. He died at his daughter's house in Lace Street, Beeston, Nottingham in 1914. I was lucky to be contacted by the  grandaughter of Alice's daughter Sarah.  Alice LaCour lived in Folsom, Pensylvania, USA and was a country and western singer who used the name Lonnie Lynne LaCour.  We exchanged many e-mails, photos and family stories over the years, she was a lovely lady.

 3.  Martha Elizabeth Stubbs (nee Matthews) (1854 - 1915)

Martha my great grandmother on my mother's side of the family was born in Welby, near Grantham in Lincolnshire the daughter of a Saddle maker named Edward Matthews and his wife the wonderfully Dickensian sounding Betsy Charity.  She married my great grandfather William Stubbs at the Weslyan Methodist Chapel in Grantham and they lived in Hose and then Long Clawson in Leicestershire.  On the 1881 census William is listed as a farmer of 63 acres.  When he died Martha married again and moved eventually to Shirebrook in Nottinghamshire.  She is buried in the cemetery there not far from William Edward Limb.  The two little girls were twins Olive and Violet, my mother's cousins.  They emigrated to Canada around the time of WW1.  Little Olive died in a diphtheria epidemic but Violet lived to a ripe old age living and working in Ottawa for the government.  She travelled all over the world and as a child and teenager I loved her Christmas letters full of her adventures.  She visited us a couple of times too so I was lucky to meet her and spend time with her.

 

4.  Rosa Gough (nee Edwards) (1879 - 1963)

My lovely granny Rose, my father's mother.  I still have the mirror decorated with roses and a blue bird which she left me in her will.  I have happy memories of visiting her house.  She used to make me clothes for my dolls and used to tell me tales of her and her sisters' childhoods.  Her house was highly polished and in the 'best' room she had paintings on the walls and wax flowers under glass domes.  She used to give me a ten shilling note when we visited.  She was so very understanding after my father died and Mum married again.  I always remember her in her flowery 'pinny', hair in a bun making her way down the hallway of her house struggling on bowed legs - something that would be rectified at a young age today.

5.  Sarah Ann Edwards (nee Hodgetts) (1855 - 1939)

Sara Ann was my great grandmother on my father's side of the family.  That is her on the left of the photo in a check shirt and white apron.  She was apparently little and feisty.  She was born in Birmingham in 1855.  On the 1861 Census the Hodgetts family are living in the St Martin's area of Birmingham in 3 House, Court 10, Alleston Street.  Every member of the family had jobs making things at home.  When we visited the National Trust Back to Back houses a few years ago I imagined that she would have lived somewhere like that.  When her mother re-married she and her brother moved with her to Newhall and Midway near Swadlincote in Derbyshire.  Sarah Ann married Thomas Edwards at Newhall Parish Church on 14th February 1875.  Granny Rose (above) was her second daughter. 

I hope you have enjoyed my little look into my family history.

Have a lovely weekend everyone.