Every One Remembered

[rosie17]

Another poppy placed for my g.uncle, orphaned aged 8 and sent to an orphanage, joined the army aged 14 in 1906 and died in the Battle of Cambrai on 24 November 1917 aged 24.  He has no grave, just his name on the Cambrai Memorial.

That is so sad    just realised my great aunt lost 3 sons 1916,1917,1918 poor woman )

Rosie

[kiwihalfpint]

That is so sad    just realised my great aunt lost 3 sons 1916,1917,1918 poor woman )

Rosie

Makes you wonder how they coped back then, just got on with life I guess.

I have two sons in one of my trees, killed 9 days apart in 1918.

Cheers
KHP

[LizzieW]

Makes you wonder how they coped back then, just got on with life I guess.

Yes my g.gran lost her husband when George Reuben was only 5 months old leaving her with 6 children 3 boys and 3 girls.  Then she died 8 years later only 3 weeks after the 1901 census was taken.  That left the children on their own, the eldest a son was 19, the next one a daughter was only 17, a son (my g.grandfather) was 15 and joined the army almost immediately, a daughter was 11, another daughter was 8 and then the youngest son.  The eldest son seems to have looked after himself and the youngest son and when he joined the army after a few months, the youngest one went into an orphanage, joining his brothers in the army 6 years later at 14.  The eldest daughter looked after the girls.  Sadly the 8 year old was seriously ill with heart disease and died 2 years later which probably accounts for the fact that the eldest daughter couldn't take on her youngest brother too.

Nowadays, the whole family would probably be taken into care if there were no relatives to look after them and the one who died with heart disease may well have lived with today's treatment.

[Greensleeves]

I agree, it is the impact of  these deaths on the family which is not often appreciated, including the devastating effects of the influenza pandemic following WW1, and the fact that TB was rife.

In my FT I have James Smith who died in 1918 flu pandemic leaving a wife, Alice, and children James aged 5, Gladys aged 4 and Olive, aged 2.  Olive died in 1919 at the age of 3.  Alice, their mother, died in 1920 in the workhouse sanatorium from TB, and the children were in a children's home.  Fortunately for them, their grandmother took them in and raised them. 

James Jnr was killed in the sinking of HMS Fiji in WW2; Gladys married and her son was my late husband.