Sons and Daughters

It has rained most of the day, although now everything has dried up and it is a lovely evening. (Spoke too soon - another downpour!)

We spent a bit of time this morning cleaning and polishing the kitchen units. We had the kitchen fitted soon after we moved in, so the units are over 20 years old and the wood is looking a bit the worse for wear. However, it all still works and we like it so we are loathe to change it. We gave the surfaces a good clean and then polished them with orange oil. Quite a transformation. 

I then put time into continuing to sort family history files. It's a while since I looked at the Allisons and it made some interesting reading. There are always stories to be unearthed, sometimes quite sad ones. Gordon's great, great grandfather was born in Melmerby and his mother was from the Braithwaite family of Melmerby. A while back we visited Melmerby churchyard and found a few gravestones related to that family. One was very sad: 


In memory of the Sons and Daughters of Joseph and Ann Scott of Melmerby. 

A daughter of the family had married and had nine children, only one of whom survived past the age of 34. In fact six of them died in their twenties or younger, four of them within a six month period. I had bought a few pf the death certificates and all gave 'Consumption' as the cause of death. The parents outlived all but one of the children. One can only imagine just how the family coped with this. The surviving brother was present at the death of some of them and I feel it must have been he who placed the gravestone in memory of his siblings. 

On a happier note - we have dates in the calendar for the first time this year!