the way we were

Went with my Mum at lunchtime today to see the Bats, Boots and Balls Exhibition, which is currently on at the Old Library in town. It isn't a big exhibition - mostly just information about the history of sport in the city, with illustrative images - but Mum wanted to go because of the picture below, used in the advertising and featured in the exhibition. The picture is of the Grange Gasworks Womens Baseball Team of 1918.

Standing at the left hand end of the back row is Mum's great-aunt Rose, who was then a member of the team, but later went on to become a back street abortionist and ended up in jail. Illegitimate and raised mostly in an orphanage, rather than by the family, although they always kept up contact with her, she went through some pretty rough times before finally managing to make a good marriage and settle down in comfort. There she was, displayed proudly in this exhibition. She never could have imagined that, way back then.

There's always something quite poignant about coming face to face with public evidence of relatives long gone. I felt the same way when Mum and I found John Melean's name - her great-grandfather, my great-great-grandfather - on a World War I memorial at the start of the summer. We'd always known that he'd died in that war - the story in the family goes that his wife, Nana Lena, miscarried twins when she heard the news - but we didn't know any details, and didn't have enough information to find out more. And there he is on the war memorial, Tank Regiment, the clue we needed to be able to trace him properly for family tree research. Having that evidence there in front of you makes them seem more real, somehow. Drives it home that he was a real person: the son of a Norwegian sailor who settled in the city and married an Irish immigrant, his daughter Beatrice was my great-grandmother, still alive when I was born.

Rose Fludder in the picture above was a real person, too, who lived and struggled to get by, just like we do today - not just a story told in the family. That photograph in the exhibition captures such a tiny snapshot of an amazingly colourful life. Her little half-sister Clara became another of my great-grandmothers.

Funny how many strands there are to a family, when you start looking. How many different directions you can look in, all those branches eventually coming together in your own family.

the way we were

Went with my Mum at lunchtime today to see the Bats, Boots and Balls Exhibition, which is currently on at the Old Library in town. It isn't a big exhibition - mostly just information about the history of sport in the city, with illustrative images - but Mum wanted to go because of the picture below, used in the advertising and featured in the exhibition. The picture is of the Grange Gasworks Womens Baseball Team of 1918.

Standing at the left hand end of the back row is Mum's great-aunt Rose, who was then a member of the team, but later went on to become a back street abortionist and ended up in jail. Illegitimate and raised mostly in an orphanage, rather than by the family, although they always kept up contact with her, she went through some pretty rough times before finally managing to make a good marriage and settle down in comfort. There she was, displayed proudly in this exhibition. She never could have imagined that, way back then.

There's always something quite poignant about coming face to face with public evidence of relatives long gone. I felt the same way when Mum and I found John Melean's name - her great-grandfather, my great-great-grandfather - on a World War I memorial at the start of the summer. We'd always known that he'd died in that war - the story in the family goes that his wife, Nana Lena, miscarried twins when she heard the news - but we didn't know any details, and didn't have enough information to find out more. And there he is on the war memorial, Tank Regiment, the clue we needed to be able to trace him properly for family tree research. Having that evidence there in front of you makes them seem more real, somehow. Drives it home that he was a real person: the son of a Norwegian sailor who settled in the city and married an Irish immigrant, his daughter Beatrice was my great-grandmother, still alive when I was born.

Rose Fludder in the picture above was a real person, too, who lived and struggled to get by, just like we do today - not just a story told in the family. That photograph in the exhibition captures such a tiny snapshot of an amazingly colourful life. Her little half-sister Clara became another of my great-grandmothers.

Funny how many strands there are to a family, when you start looking. How many different directions you can look in, all those branches eventually coming together in your own family.