Hopwood family,Argoed,Mold

[tobyjug]

Hi to John Bottomly.  My grandmother was Faith Bottomly.  She married Henry Charles Kennedy and had two children June and Henry.  Henry (Harry) is my dad - 82 and still walking up fells.  I remember Ruth who i stayed with many times and Lesley(?)who I used to help manning the pleasure boats on Lake Windermere during my school holidays.  Who was the adopted son?  It's all intriguing and dad will be interested.

[John Bottomley]

Hi TobyJug,
This is so great to finally catch up with others in the family.  I have wanted to do this for so long now.
Anyway a bit about our family. We live in New Zealand.  My father (John Alan Bottomley) who he tells me was adopted by Martha Bottomley from birth.  He was the youngest of all the family. He is now 85 years old and still active but a bit frail now, but lives around the corner so I see him daily.
Dad adored his adopted mum (Martha) and thought the world of her.  She must have been really special and a great woman.   We have all inherited her strong faith and we all are active in church life here.    Dad married again after my mother died in 1995.  He keeps in contact with many of the family and he has mentioned the Kennedy family.
 I am in my late 50's now, married with three children (Lara, Shannon and Samuel). Lara (20) is studying at Auckland Uni, Shannon (17) is in her last year of school, and Sam (14) is at school.  We named him Sam partly due to Dad's brother Sam, who was good at football (just like my Sam).   My mother and father emigrated to NZ when I was about 2 yo in late 1950's.
I am an engineer (having studied engineering at university for 6 years) and much of my work is in Asia, where we lived (Indonesia) for three years.

Out of interest I would like if possible to find out more about dad's real mum and dad who gave him up for adoption. If the family know anything I would be interested.

Anyway that's probably enough for now.

Keep in touch

John Bottomley

[tobyjug]

Hello John,
It was lovely to hear from you and discover a little more about my nan's side of the family.  I mentioned to my mum (Harry's wife) that you had been in touch and asked her if she knew any of the background to your dad's adoption.  She seemed to think that John was actually Martha's grandson - the son of one of her sons (or possibly Faith or Ruth - I'd need to research dates etc to see if that were possible) and she brought him up as her own son. It may be something you could research. I'll see what I can find out too.
Much love Vickie

[John Bottomley]

Hi Vickie, (better than-  Hi  Tobyjugs!),
this is very interesting about dad being Martha's grand son.  Any further information you can find out please let me know.
Years ago when I was in England I stayed with Ruth who I got on so well with and I asked her about dad.  She said that she knew the young girl and they both were the same age (about 17) and this girl got pregnant by mistake and Martha decided to adopt.  There was some info from somewhere that both parents were welsh but don't know anything else.  I do know Ruth was very close to my dad and they got on very well.  Ruth also said that Dads mother turned up at his wedding, and didn't tell anyone but Ruth knew.
Dad has tried for years to find out information about is real mum and dad and I think he would be overjoyed to hear (if you can confirm this)  that Martha is his  blood grandmother, as he even today talks so much about how wonderful she was to him as how he loved her so much.  I have a photo of Martha holding me as a baby.


Warm regards

John

[John Bottomley]

Hi Vickie,
well its been some years now since I last posted.  I was disappointed I never got a reply to my last post.  I hope that it has not upset you and the family that I was inquiring about my dad's birth mother and Father?
Any way the family and I are doing a trip to UK this Christmas and we hope to catch up with Ann Ferdinand, Val and Geoff Bailey and Marjorie Davidson.
If you want to ever get in touch I would be really pleased to hear from you.
My email address is bottomleyj@thorndoncook.com
Cheers

John Bottomley