T'other Side of the Fireplace, Another Side of Me

These photographs are of Moses and Leah. They stand on the right-hand side of our mantlepiece. If there was a fire, they are definitely on my "save first" list.

Moses and Leah met in London in the late 1870's. I am still trying to find out where and when they married. I believe these pictures were taken around the time of their wedding, when they were eighteen. That would make it about 1880. What I do know is that by the 1881 census they were living in Garibaldi Street, Grimsby, with their first child, Isaac, who had been born early that year.

They moved to Grimsby to live with Moses' widowed mother, when she re-married. Moses worked as a tailor. The living arrangements didn't last long, as Leah didn't get on with her mother-in-law. Behind her husband's back, she rented the Garabaldi Street house and, by hand cart, moved the baby's crib and Moses' sewing machine into it. She knew that Moses would have to follow her, as he needed the sewing machine to earn a living.

They went on to have eighteen children in total, between 1881 and 1908. My grandma Judy was the sixteenth, born in 1902. I also have a group photo of the family at the wedding of the eldest daughter, Addie, in August 1906. I'm saving that one for another rainy day blip!