|
Family Stories Hearsay, family jokes, fragments of memories passed down from one generation to the next. Not legends, like my supposed relation to Eric the Red. Little day to day happenings of ancestors. Things your grandmother's mother told her when she was a child. Things can get passed on across a century and a half or more in this way. The oral traditions of a family. Mine in this case.
When my grandfather Harry (Henry William Payne) and his brother Jack (John Walter Payne jr) were young, maybe 7 and 9 or 8 and 10, the circus came to town. Like hundreds or thousands of other kids, they went to see it. Like many other kids, I suppose, they decided to put on a circus of their own. Unlike most of those kids, they charged other kids in the neighbourhood a penny to see the show. Their mother stepped outside just in time. Harry was about to walk across the clothesline that stretched from the garage to the house. Jack's plan was to dive from the roof of the garage into a bucket of water. Could have been a very bad day.
My great-great-uncle Alfred Payne (Henry and Sarah's youngest child) is said to have been born on the ship during the voyage from England. I've yet to find any documentation to support this, although no birth registration appears to have been filed for him in Canada.
My great-grandmother Grace Fisher (born Glasscock) took her oldest (and only pre-war) son, Robert to England near the end of World War I. The story goes that she stayed for some weeks with family of her husband's in Kent. I don't have any evidence that Robert Matthew was able to visit during this time and haven't yet done enough research to suggest whether this were even possible. There is a photo supporting this visit.
Great-grandmother Johanne was a poet. A moody one by all accounts. It's unfortunate that much of her writing was lost after her death, although a little survived and has been kept by her grandchildren (notably my cousin Lena). I've been given a copy of one poem in translation. |
||||
|
Schonberg Line Hansen Line Payne Line Fisher Line Generated Pages Family Stories Family Legends Photos Brick Walls |
||||
