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.