Finding Martie in my letter this morning

This old photo makes me smile, little Shawni waving from the kitchen window of the house we rented in Marly-le-Roi in the mid eighties.

I would write my letters at a small kitchen table near where Shawni is standing in the photo, mostly with a mug of tea in hand. Looking at my letters again this morning I saw my comment to Mom about Martie. 'She is such a good person, I really miss having her around." Bernie had organised a canoe paddle for Fred and Martie used the opportunity to put together treats for us all.

Martie and I chatted a little earlier about all the decisions that she has to make about her pending spinal surgery. Not an easy time especially when she feels so drained from all the discomfort and how it is limiting her days.

So Martie dear friend, twenty years later, you are more than a good person, you are remarkable and I so value all the years of friendship.

We do not write letters anymore but if I was sending you one it would be a thank you, it is still a privilege to be your friend.

Spending time with family

Our home in Les Ombrage, Marly-le-Roi with the 'summerhouse' we used for visitors.

Living in Europe during 1987 we had the opportunity to meet and spend more time with Fred's Dutch family.

Their first visit to our home in Marly-le-Roi got Fred and I into a spin to complete the outside room or 'summerhouse' as I called it and to make it liveable and warm. The building was about 400 years old and when we went back to Paris a few years back I was disappointed to see the building had been pulled down.

We had gone to IKEA, a favourite store we frequented to the north of Paris, bought many meters of dark blue fabric and I 'spent the rest of the weekend sewing 12 curtains'.

I am impressed. Fred wove the tiebacks, hung the curtains, finished the skirting, we moved the beds in and I decorated with 'odds and ends'.

Our first visitors from the Netherlands were Fred's Uncle Piet and Tante Grada Kersten, and his Tanta Lies and Uncle Wim. I write to Mom that 'all of them very nice people'.

They had a special zest for life and we enjoyed our times with them. 'They are really so full of fun and very easy to please.'

I love that I seem surprised that they praised my cooking and said it was very French.

I have been inspired by these letters to get back to some of my favourite french recipes that I cooked during those years.

So last night I made french onion soup for Ian and Julie here in Cape Town, with its topping of melted gruyere on ciabatta.

Still good so many years later.

I have a couple of photos of the family during their visit, not good photos but everyone looks well and content.

Fred with his family in 1987.

Post script:
I was going through photos and cards and found this birthday card to Barry from Tante Grada thanking us for their few days with us in Paris.

Fred's aunt writing to us from Holland

My Parisian houses

My framed cross-stitch tapestries hang in our Cape Town flat.

I have been completely absorbed in finding out more about my grandmother Nellie's family, that it is now time to get back to my letters.

April is a special month for birthdays and anniversaries in our family.

So I dipped into my pile of letters that Mom preserved for me and the letter of the 30th April 1987 triggered lots of memories.

Fred and I had gone into Paris to buy pieces of original ceramic art to celebrate our 8th anniversary. I was sharing it with Mom and sent her a portion of the brochure so she could see what the ceramic houses look like.

The pieces are still in my lounge, one or two got broken or a little chipped but otherwise they have survived the decades.

Sometime later I found a cross-stitch pattern and made up two pieces as they looked very similar to the Parisian houses we had bought. The cross-stitch tapestries hang in the flat here in Cape Town and I still enjoy looking at them.

For our anniversary in 1987 we had dinner at a French Bistro on the Seine River. I mention to Mom that it had a great atmosphere and we had lovely seafood.

A few days back Shawni sent me photos of their evening out to Hippopotamus at the Museum Hotel in Wellington to celebrate their first anniversary.

She and I are a function of the masterchef phenomenon and share a love of yummy food beautifully presented.

Her menu choice: Beef fillet, beef cheek cannelloni, braised short rib with truffle mash and roast marrow.
Craig's choice : Venison with pickled beetroot, poached prune, salted caramel ganache, chocolate chilli crumble.
New Zealand oyster's to start and French Champagne. Yum.

I wonder what my Mom would have thought of that menu!

Finding a record of the divorce...

We are linked by blood, and blood is memory without language.

Joyce Carol Oates

I spent hours on my laptop last night following leads to find out more about the disappearance of Kathleen Argyle, my maternal great grandmother, from my grandmother Nellie's life.

And then I stumbled on a site that has divorce records.

William Argyle divorced Kathleen in 1902.

Oh my.
I had a moment of feeling shocked that she had not raised Nan, her little Nellie, she had not died but had got involved with Arthur Merchant, the co-respondent sited in the divorce.

Reference:	J 77/772/3487
Description:	Divorce Court File: 3487. Appellant: William Argyle. Respondent: Kathleen Arglye. Co-respondent: Arthur Merchant. Type: Husband's petition for divorce [HD].
Date:	1902
Held by:	The National Archives, Kew
Legal status:	Public Record
Language:	English

In the 1901 Census when Kathleen and little Nellie were living with her parents in Chirstchurch, Arthur Merchant was 23, the same age as Kathleen and a soldier from Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, at the Shoeburyness Barracks.


By 1911, Arthur and Kathleen are living in Eastleigh, about 30 miles north-east from her parents in New Milton, they are married and have been for 7 years. 

What is puzzling to me is the response to the question of the number of children. Kathleen has noted 3 children, one living and 2 dead. We know that her first daughter Edith died, but Nellie is certainly alive and well in South Africa at this point and William, which I am assuming is their child is 5. Does she not know how to deal with a child not living with her? And this little boy called William, the name of her divorced husband, all a bit odd.

Arthur is now a Blacksmith's Striker in the Carriage Department of a Railway Company. A striker would have been the blacksmith's assistant, working with iron using a furnace, anvil and hammer. 

Nolene's thoughts on the new insight about Kathleen:
'As William divorced her (appears to have been for infidelity) that may explain why he had custody of Nellie and was able to take Nellie to South Africa…………….Perhaps William went out to South Africa to establish a base and when he came back to the UK to collect his family he discovered that Kate had been seduced by an irresistible Royal Artillery soldier……………….'

Arthur John Merchant  in the England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1966 I am fascinated about all the information one can glean about our ancestors. Here is another snippet that Nolene sent to me from the National Probate Calendar, which is an index of wills. So Arthur died in 1957 and William inherits his estate. It looks like Kathleen died in June 1949 aged 71. She did not know her daughter nor did she meet her granddaughter, my mother Daphne Estelle who would have been 16 in 1949.  I will never know the real story but it has been an extraordinary search to learn this amount about Kathleen Guster/Argyle/Merchant.

The Groom and Gardener at Fernhill Manor, New Milton

We need to haunt the house of history and listen anew to the ancestors' wisdom.

Maya Angelou 

Nolene Lossau is still digging into the mystery of what happened to Kathleen Argyle, my maternal grandmother Nellie's mother, from the Isle of Wight.

The 1911 Census of England and Wales shows that her parents Frank and Jane are now 65 and 70. What is also special about the 1911 Census is that he would have filled in the form himself, it is Frank's handwriting I am looking at.

They have moved from Christchurch, where Frank was a publican in the 1901 Census, to New Milton.

Frank Guster is now a groom and gardener at Fernhill Manor in New Milton and as Nolene noted:

'Perhaps Frank’s business as a publican went belly up and he had to move and get a job elsewhere – that may have necessitated them sending Nellie to South Africa?' 

He certainly moved around and changed his occupation frequently, in an earlier census, 1881, he is 36, married to Jane and living at 4 Bank Place in Ryde, Isle of Wight and at this stage in his life he is working as a Coachman.

The census form shows they had 7 children and 2 were deceased in 1911, maybe Kathleen is one of their deceased children. 

Frank dies 3 years later aged 69. 

I am still wondering what has happened to his daughter Kate.

The mystery of Kathleen Argyle

My maternal grandmother was Nellie Winifred van der Veen, nee Argyle, and this is what I know about her mother, Kathleen:

Kathleen Argyle was born Kathleen Guster, sometimes spelt Gustar, on the Isle of Wight early in 1878.

Her Christening record shows the date as 7 April 1878 and the place as Wootton, Hampshire, Isle of Wight.

Her father is Frank George Guster (1847 - 1914) and mother is Jane, nee Gould (1841- 1919).

From the 1901 Census data Frank is 55 years old and a Licenced Victualler, or Pub owner.

I have also found a family tree on FamilySearch which records her family all the way back to the 1500's!

And yet she remains a mystery.

There is a marriage record on the 25th September 1897. She is 19 years old then and is marrying William Argyle. He was the son of a gardener and a laundress and he is a decade older than Kate.

Their first child, Edith, is baptised 8 months later on the 13 May 1898 and dies on the 15 August that same year.



Kate is recorded on the 1901 census, she is 23 years old and living at 16 Church Street in Christchurch with her parents.

(Christchurch is a borough and town on the south coast of England. The town adjoins Bournemouth in the west and the New Forest lies to the east.)

Nellie is also listed, the grand-daughter of Frank and Jane and is a year old.

And then nothing.

Nolene and I have drawn a blank at this point after the 1901 Census.

William comes out to South Africa and settles in Pretoria, Nan arrives at some point, he remarries and no one seems to know anything about Kathleen, whether she died, or they divorced, or she remarried, all very curious.

So a potential story of Kate and William Argyle: 


Kate, one of 7 children born to the Pub Owner Frank and his wife Jane, was living in Christchurch, Isle of Wight. 
She is a young woman of 19 when she falls in love with an older man, one William Argyle, the son of a labourer and laundress. Perhaps he frequented Frank's pub. 
She is seduced by the trumpet playing dark eyed man, maybe her parents disapprove but either way she is committed.
Their daughter Edith is born 8 months later and the couple suffer through her death 3 months later. Kate falls pregnant again and they have a second little girl called Nellie Winifred. 
In 1901, Kate has taken refuge with her parents and she has the little Nellie with her. 
At some point they take Nellie, dressed in fine clothes and bonnet, to a formal photographer for studio photos, are they recording the moment that she is leaving her mother's family?

From here the story gets cloudier and we do not know what circumstances caused the young Nellie to move to Africa, maybe Kate had died and Nellie's grandparents were too old to have the responsibility for the little Nellie, or did William decide to raise her and sent for his daughter?
If Kate did not die, what would cause her to let Nellie go to her father in this remote colony, so far from the Isle of Wight? 

Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The story of Ann Sibbick through the England Census records

History remembers only the celebrated, genealogy remembers them all.

Laurence Overmire

While Christopher Wedderburn and his family were making a new life in the Eastern Cape in South Africa, on the Isle of Wight a little girl called Ann is born to Edward and Hannah Sibbick.

She was born in Brading, on the east coast of the Isle, sometime in 1831.

Nolene Lossau looked at the Census records with me to find out more about the young Ann.

She is 10 in 1841 and with her family in Brading.

1841 Census Data, Ann Sibbick with her family in Brading.

1851 Census Data, London House in Ventnor, Ann is a Housemaid.

Her father, Edward, is 55 and registered as an agricultural labourer. Her mother, Hannah is 50 and has no occupation indicated on the form.

She has 2 older brothers, John, Isaac and little Henry is only 3 years old.

In 1851 she was now 20 and had moved from Brading to Ventnor in the district of Godshill, in the south east of the Isle of Wight.

The census record is a delight to look at.

Ann Sibbick is working at London House in Ventnor as one of 4 servants to an Elizabeth Briant, a Wine Merchant.

Feels to me like an early version of Downton Abbey, a Cook, a Housekeeper and 2 Housemaids. The census data also records 2 female lodgers at London House, both from Ireland.

I googled London House in Ventnor and it seems to still exist with a wonderful Facebook page and is a bakery and deli. A must on my itinerary for when I visit the Isle of Wight.

A decade later, life has moved on for Ann.

She is 30. Still living in Ventnor on the Isle of Wight but she is now married.

1861 Census Data, Ann is now married and living at 54 St Catherine Street, Ventnor.

Her husband is John Argyle. He is also 30.

The Census data records him as born in Fordington, Dorset, which is part of the town of Dorchester in the south-west of the UK.

John's occupation is given as a Labourer and Ann is now a Charwoman.

They are living in St. Catherine Street, at number 54 which seems to remain the family home over the decades.

1871 Census data, Ann is a mother to Annie and William

By 1871 Ann is 40, still married and a mother of two.

They have 2 lodgers registered with them at 54 St Catherine Street, a James and Frederick. I cannot make out James occupation but Frederick is a Bakers Assistant.

John, Ann's husband is now a Gardener and she is a Laundress.

From the Census data her children are a daughter Annie, who is 9 and a scholar.

And little William who is a year old in 1871. My Nan's father.





Post script: 
A FreeBMD search shows that Ann Argyle died in the last quarter of 1894, on the Isle of Wight, at the age of 64.