All posts by jo.snover@gmail.com

John Hewitt Hatfield-watchmaker to surgeon dentist

William Williams bow tie chart

John Hewitt Hatfield is my 3rd great grandfather – his daughter Jane married the brewer William Williams. John was born in Great Wigston – or Wigston Magna – in Leicestershire in 1821 (or thereabouts). His father, John, was a watchmaker from a nearby town, Husband’s Bosworth. Adding another lovely name, John Hewitt’s father died in Kibworth Beauchamp . I think the family may have been non-conformists (i.e. not Church of England) and records of John Hewitt Hatfield’s birth or baptism aren’t available anywhere I can find. Civil registration of births, marriages and deaths only began in 1836, so without a parish record of a baptism, later census records are the only source (and as they’re self reported, they aren’t always reliable).

Economic conditions in the Leicester area were pretty dire at the time, as an excerpt below from the May 1819 Leicester Chronicle points out. I can see why a young man in the late 1830s might head for London to see if he could do better for himself.

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William Williams, brewer

Elberfeld
Elberfeld, William Williams’ birthplace

Other than wondering how one survived childhood with first and last names almost the same, I hadn’t thought much about my 2nd great grandfather, William Williams. I had him in the family tree and knew he was born in 1840 in Elberfeld, Germany, but lived in England as an adult, dying in Forest Hill, London in 1907. I don’t think we have a beer brewer anywhere else in the family tree, but William picked about the best time to get into the beer brewing business as it was booming in England in the mid- to late-1800s. He moved frequently from one beer-brewing town to the next in England and Germany and managed to make a decent living along the way. Not bad given the very rough start he had.

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A bright white blob in the woods on a winter morning

Fine white hair-like strands

Most mornings, and Boxing Day was no exception, I enjoy a mug of tea in the kitchen window seat where the woods behind our house provide a simple and soothing view. This time of year there’s little color, but the backdrop is varied browns of fallen leaves, and branches coated with moss and lichens. Against those muted Winter tones, the bright white object on the ground at the edge of the woods stood out – not a pale stone or mushroom cap, but something aggressively and purely white. I worried it was a small animal – an owl or coyote’s prey – and thought I should take a look.

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When your shower door “explodes”!

The aftermath

In 2015 we remodeled a number of rooms in our home and have been enjoying the results in the four years since. I had no idea that tempered glass – used in both bathrooms – had a party trick reminiscent of spontaneous combustion, but I’m now wiser. And thankfully unhurt by the experience. You can compare the original bathroom look here, and the other bathroom’s glass looks like this. Safety glass was a term I thought I understood – in an “I know what that’s for” sort of way, versus really having a clue how it was made, what its risks vs. benefits were or anything else specific. Silly human! If you want to read a very brief overview, see what the Glass Doctor has to say.

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The home on Liberal Avenue, Detroit

Bob Sznarwakowski and his family had a tough few years in the 1930s, but things were looking up by the time Bob turned 18 in March 1944 and registered for the draft. The family had recently moved into a new home at 16076 Liberal Avenue and Bob had a good job at Gar Wood Industries. In scanning and restoring some old photos recently, I found one of Bob, home on leave from the Army – he enlisted in July 1944 – sitting on the front steps of the home on Liberal Avenue.

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David Poulson – cars, sun & shorts

David Poulson – Dad – worked in the theatre most of his life which may account for his focus on appearance, both his own and other people’s. Creating your public image by how you dressed, what stories you told, what accessories you could flaunt (think car, watch, jewelry, cigarette holder) was part of who he was – and it went beyond his professional need when casting a play to assess whether someone “looked right” for a part. Toddler David (around 1928) didn’t choose the sweater and knitted shorts – conventions used to be that little boys wore shorts and you advanced to long trousers at the right age (11-ish). Utterly daft concept (why should little kids have cold legs?) . Once he was old enough to make his own choices, a very different (less cuddly, more jet-set) image took shape.

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Yvonne paints Wynne & Len

Yvonne Forster, my Mum, sketched, painted and drew for most of her life. Some scribbled drawings accompanied her diaries – abstract ideas or objects or decorated letters. This was from a notebook with various rough sketches or watercolors – Mum always preferred communicating with pictures. Some painting was for income – she didn’t do many commissioned portraits, but her graphic design work sometimes included freelance projects (a children’s illustrated guide to crochet stitches is one I still have). I would get watercolor birthday cards until shaking hands and poor eyesight made it too hard (she could still do it but wasn’t happy with the quality). One subject stood out from all others – trees.

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Growing up with our grandparents

Rose & Margo, Lyme Regis

This is part II of the story of four generations preceding me and my four brothers – our parents growing up between the wars in England and somehow all ending up in the theatre. For Yvonne and David, I have written recollections. Yvonne left many – some illustrated – diary-like notes and a book, Mind Boggled. David left a stack of notebooks filled with a scribbled draft of a memoir he never finished – to his credit, he numbered the pages, books, and various inserts – in his near-illegible writing. It’s mostly theatre name-dropping and “funny stories” but parts are about his early years. A characteristic blend of gauzy generalities of an idyllic childhood and tales of David’s excellent adventures. Old newspapers add details – of piano competitions, school prizes or sports matches – plus there are stories we heard from them growing up. David’s “Progress Book”, written by Billie, and a few notes in an album by Wynne are the only accounts from the grandparents directly. Margo’s brother Harding kindly provided some childhood stories for her. I’d like to offer a sense of where they lived, went to school, what home life was like, and to sketch out their path from babies to the adults we knew.

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Who were those people in the family tree?

I’ve spent many hours combing through records and newspaper articles about ancestors and long-dead relatives, and although there’s much I don’t know, I realized I have lots of thumbnail sketches of where they lived, what sort of work they did and occasionally other snippets of information which I haven’t shared. The more substantial stories – such as interfering in an election in Pontefract – have blog posts, but the smaller details are only in my head. Recently I sent my brothers two bow-tie charts, and one replied that it looked odd as he’d never heard of many of the names. Time to put a little flesh on those bones!

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Born in London with ancestors in Utah?

21 Gloucester Crescent, Camden Town, London (picture courtesy Google Street View)
21 Gloucester Crescent, Camden Town, London (picture courtesy Google Street View)

Deciding to take a DNA test has been a source of all sorts of surprises – an unknown cousin, for example. The discovery of Cornish mining ancestors for my husband’s family as another. My current puzzle is how a kid from Camden Town in London (photo on left is the flat my parents lived in) has DNA matches to a group of people who have been living in the USA since the 1860s. The more digging I do, the more clear the picture becomes with one small, but important, missing piece – how this group of related people in the US is genetically connected to me!

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