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My Grandmother remembers being told that her Mother grew up with an Aunt in Blue Bell Hill, Kent, England. I don't know if this is 'code' for growing up in a children's home??
We don’t know when Dinah moved from Kent to London.
We do have a bunch of old photos, which belonged to Dinah. Unfortunately we don’t know who any of the people are though. We do recognise Dinah in a couple of them. One as a teenager and one as a small girl (perhaps aged three or four). There’s nothing written on any of the photos. The only clue from the photos, is the name of the photographer on the front of the one where she is a small child (taken approx. 1895). Printed on the front is ‘Lewis & C’ and ‘6 Sandling Road, Maidstone’. (I’ve checked Google Maps and Blue Bell Hill village is very close to Maidstone).
I’ve had the photos dated and they are from the period c1890–c1915, which is exactly the period we know nothing about Nanny Dinah!
The most recent of the photos was dated c1915 and Nanny Dinah is wearing a ‘Munitionette’ uniform. None of the family knew that she had worked in a Munitions factory. An expert from the War Museum spotted me carrying the photo and asked to see it! Otherwise, we would never have known she was wearing a uniform of some sort or indeed that she worked in a Munitions factory!
My Mum has spotted that Dinah is wearing a wedding band ring in this photo. We don’t know if she was engaged to Walter at this point or if she was engaged / married to someone else? Perhaps this explains the use of the two maiden names? Although we can’t find any other marriage record for Dinah and she is recorded as a Spinster on her marriage cert in 1929.
Just this month, I’ve obtained the data from the 1939 WW2 National Registration. Nanny Dinah’s recorded as Dorothy STAPLES, born 27 September 1891. This is the first and only document that we have, which provides us with her date-of-birth. It does match my Grandmother’s memory though, because she remembers that Dinah’s birthday was always celebrated on 27 Sep. Of course, the year-of-birth is only the year that Dinah claimed to be her year-of-birth! It does match the age on the marriage cert, 10 years earlier.
I can’t find any birth record for her, or find her in the 1901 or 1911 census records.
I’ve ordered several birth certs from around 1891, but no matches with a date of birth of 27 September. I’ve also found a Dorothy SHEPHERD in the Maidstone area, living with an Aunt, but I’ve traced her to the USA and it’s not my Great-Grandmother.
I have found a Dorothy SHEPHERD, working in the bar of a hotel in the Woolwich area, in the 1911 census. It’s a longshot, but perhaps this is her and perhaps it was the nearby Royal Woolwich that she got a job in, a few years later?
Through her married life, she sold groceries from the front room of her house and then in later life, she worked in the cloakroom of ‘Mozart House’, Albion Road, Hackney.
Help please
Many thanks in advance, Glen.
