Not counted

Most of research, genealogical and otherwise, is a systematic, plodding process with few surprises. And then there are days where you find an ancestor's name on an unexpected document. 

This happened just yesterday, working through the shaky leaves on one branch of my family tree (for those people who only deal with the living, the shaky leaves are an indication that Ancestry's logarithm has turned up a potential source of information on a person; when your tree is extensive like mine, there are literally hundreds of leaves to sort through.). 

The leaf in question led to a birth certificate from Deer Lodge, Montana for my grandaunt Florence (my maternal grandmother's sister). Florence was the family 'keeper:' the one who stashed letters and objects and documents--neatly labeled in her square-block handwriting, and opened her home when her sister Ella was widowed, taking in more than one of her five children. Florence had two children of her own, as chronicled in the family history she so painstakingly curated and passed down, so I wasn't surprised to see a hint for a birth certificate with her listed as the mother (and her husband as the father). 

What made me gasp though--and I did gasp--was the information in the certificate. The first name of the child was blank. Perhaps they hadn't named her yet? Not unheard of. But then the date, March 21, 1910, which was years off from my records, and the notation, "stillborn." Florence and Claude's second child, a girl, was born dead. 

We have lost a daughter to stillbirth; the pain may be more subdued now, but things like this do jar me and tears well in my eyes: for my own pain, and now, for Florence's pain. I understand how wrought something as innocuous as the question, "how many children do you have?" is. The 1910 census where her small family appears is dated April 18, not even a month after she and Claude lost their daughter. "Mother of how many children?" it asks; column 10 asks "Number born" and column 11, "Number now living." Both columns in her entry say "1." For instructions to the enumerators state, "stillborn children are not to be counted." Even though they very much do. 

1910 Census

Coronation Days

My mother-in-law penned the tale of how her "pen pal," later to be her husband Alfred, finally managed to come to England in the summer of 1953. His visit happily coincided with the coronation. As she tells it:

He arrived just before the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and I wanted to look at it on the TV. My mother said, "you cannot do that, Thelma, you ought to go to London with him!" So on the evening of the day before the coronation took place, we travelled with my cousin Terry to Regent Street in London. We sat on the pavement on a blanket in about the third row back from the kerb at 11:00 pm at night.  At 7:00 am the next morning, police on horseback came round and we were told we must all stand up. 

It wasn’t until 5 pm in the afternoon that the Queen and Philipp went past us in the Golden coach. It was raining slightly and the coaches with Kings and Queens from other countries had them closed up so that we only saw them through the windows. In the procession, only one Queen didn’t mind the rain: the Queen of Tonga, a smiling stout lady, was in her open coach. 

When the procession had passed by, we returned back to Walthamstow and I said, "I would not have missed it for the world, it was quite a sensation."

Queen Salote of Tonga famously delighted the crowds
in the coronation procession for Elizabeth II