(23) 'The Julia Smith Story'

[Ken]

                                                                                     

My Sister Violet once wrote in a letter to me, "We never ask enough questions when we are young, too busy growing up, that's why diaries are a good idea." My sister was so right!   I was so pleased, therefore, when both my children showed such interest when I started writing down some of my memories, be they amusing anecdotes from my youth or the triumph and disasters of my business life.  This memory, it is as much a regret as a memory, invaded my mind yet again when I recently came across the above song and the video that goes with it. The song was a favourite of both my brother Wally and I during the five years we worked together, buts it is the photos in the video that haunt me, and the questions they invoke.

The photos show a selection of proud people standing in front of their small sod house homes. Sometimes they are in their work clothes, sometimes in their Sunday best.  I find myself wondering who they were and where they were going?  a wedding, a christening, perhaps just a family gathering, but the one thing these people had in common was their wish to be photographed.  That's what haunts me for these type of photos were taken all over the world, by the sodbusters in far away Kansas, U.S.A, and by the the people of Thwaite in the county of Suffolk, England, where my mother grew up.  Why, therefore, is there nowhere in our vast and talented family a single photograph of my mother as a child.  Or of my grandmother, my mums Mum!  My grandmother was born Julia Smith on April 5th, 1867.  I have no knowledge of the size of her family but in an age of big families siblings were likely, but no family photos seem to exist. The exact dates are not known but she married and became Mrs Julia Warren in the mid 1880s. They had the following children, William, Emily (aka Dodd), Cassie, Jack and Charlie. Nothing is known of her husband, save he had died by 1897 and she found herself a widow with five young children.  If any photo's were taken during this earlier period of her life and of the people who would become my aunts and uncles, we have no trace of them.

On July 24th, 1897, the now thirty year old mother and widow married again and she became Mrs Julia Mutimer. Her new husband, Robert, was sixteen years her senior and he took on responsibility for her five children. The two of them had four more children together, Thomas in 1898, Earnest in 1900, Robert jnr (aka Bob) in 1902, and Ruby, my mother, in 1904.  Again, not a single photo seems to have come via my mother or the possessions she left of either of my grandparents.  How this could be is a mystery?  My mothers parents seem to have been good people, they were happy together and from what I can gather Julia's new husband, a manual council labourer, was a good dad to all nine of her children.  During their thirty three year marriage there must have been hundreds of photos taken.  Photos of happy events, of weddings, christenings and sons coming back from the war.  Am I strange to be sad not to have seen a single one?  The truth is, however, I've only myself to blame.  I could have asked questions when people who could have helped were still alive, perhaps found someone with photos I could have had copied.  But I didn't,  it's as my sister Violet said, "We never ask enough questions when we're young, when we're too busy growing up", and then its often to late.

Last August, my wife returned from a family gathering and was able to tell me about the family members she had met who I haven't seen for some time. "They're all nice people", she told me, "The nieces and nephews and their spouses, and the cousins all seem to enjoy each others company." Jenny said she was sad I couldn't be there.  Well so was I, but I'm pleased to say that unlike my mums Mum, none of them will ever be an unknown face. Thanks to my nephew, Peter Tuffs, they are now Immortalised in the brilliant book he created, the book called, 'The Tuffs Family'. Its a pity he wasn't around in the time of his great grandmother, 'Julia Jane Smith.'  Now here's a challenge for you Pete, get on to 'H G Wells' estate, borrow his time machine and do another book, this one will be called, 'The Smith Family'.  I might then, at last, see what my Grandmother looked like!

Post Script Update. 14.9.2013.
Peter Tuffs to the rescue.  This morning I received an email from my nephew, with a photo of my grandmother holding my brother Wally.

Update 2.  Summer 2014.
Peter does it again.  The entire family received a book written by my nephew called, 'Proud to be a Tuffs.'  In it Peter wrote, from his viewpoint, much of our history, together with anecdotes gathered from my siblings and myself.  The book also contained, to my delight, many ancient photo's of days gone by, including photo's of all four of my Grandparents!  
   

   

[Ken]

For our granddaughter, Emma, not to have in future years a single photo of a woman she adores is almost unthinkable.  To imagine she'd know nothing at all about her beloved Gubby (Grandma), would seem to be impossible but such things happen.  This story of frustration is about my feeling that something is missing in my not knowing my grandparents....