Advent Calendar Day 9

Annie White aged 14

Annie is my other grandmother, my father's mother.  She was born in Kent, the daughter of Thomas White and Elizabeth (Betsy Linkins).  She was one of 8 children and remained very close to her only sister, Amy.  

My father was given to understand that his mother was disowned when she was with child and the fact he was born in Hastings and his mother’s family lived in Kent shows that this could be true.  This fact is further supported as at her funeral there were family members who didn’t even know about him.  However, Annie White appears as the informant on her father’s death certificate.  She did always keep in touch with her younger sister Amy but did she ever keep in touch with her brothers?

She was a slim lady but not particularly tall. I remember her always wearing straw hats and smiling.  She stayed unmarried and all the census records showed her as being in domestic service both in Kent and Sussex.

She would travel by train to Robertsbridge when we visited my other grandparents.  Sometimes we would go down to Hastings to see her and she would meet us in the park or on the beach but we never went to her home until a year or two before she died, in a care home.  She lived in her bedroom on the top floor on a house in Salisbury Road and had another room as a little kitchen but it had no running water; she had to get that from the floor below which was also where the lavatory was.  Her room smelt of paraffin as a paraffin heater was her only form of heating.  I was surprised by how little she had in her room but she appeared content with her life.

I always wrote thank you letters for my birthday and Christmas presents but one year she took me to task because although I had thanked her for my birthday present I never thanked her for my birthday card and she threatened not to send me a card and present again if I didn’t!!!

Straw hat!!!!