Sunday Salon – My Family Bible

Published on by Margaret
I’ve not done much today – read a little, done some family history, made lunch and taken some photos. It seems an appropriate day to write about my family Bible. Sunday reading in Victorian times would mainly be restricted to the Bible, I suppose and here is what my family would have been reading over 100 years ago.

My family Bible has seen better days! Hopefully this is a “before” photo as I’ve found a local bookbinder and restorer, who I hope is going to work wonders.

This Bible belonged to my great grandfather, Isaac. Inside he recorded that he was born on 7 August 1848 and married Elizabeth on 10 November 1877. (Coincidentally my birthday is 7 August and wedding anniversary is 8 November!) They had five children, the two eldest being Sarah and George (my grandfather). Then there was John who died aged 28 in 1911 (I’d love to find out what happened to him, maybe his death certificate will tell me) and Emily who died aged 21months and Annie aged 11 months. 

 

When I was five my grandparents came to live with us and brought the Bible with them. I loved looking at it and at photos of Isaac and Elizabeth, being a little scared as they looked so stern. The only photos that I have now are of Elizabeth with her grandchildren. The little girl in the photo below is my mother.

Looking inside the Bible this morning a little newspaper cutting fell out. It was about my parents’ wedding and I’d never seen it before. They were married in 1938 at Shotton in Wales and I’d seen their wedding photo, which is of course black and white. It had never occurred to me to ask my mum what colour her dress was and I’d just assumed it was white. However it was blue – the symbol of purity. The newspaper cutting revealed that her dress was “pale blue satin, hat to tone” and she carried a bouquet of pink carnations. The two bridesmaids were “attired in blue Victorian dresses, with halos to match and carried Victorian posies.”  The bride was presented with lucky horseshoes by two of her friends as she left the church and following a reception at the bride’s home the couple left for their honeymoon at Llandudno.

As a child I loved to see the lucky horseshoes and I still have them, looking bright and shiny after 70 years!

12 thoughts on “Sunday Salon – My Family Bible”

  1. Thank you for sharing the story of your family Bible, Margaret. Imagine the stories these books would tell if they could speak about those whose hands have touched it. I believe my mother is the keeper of her family’s Bible. I saw it only once, when we were going through my grandmother’s things right after her death. What sticks out in my mind the most was the family tree which had been added to over the generations.

    I hope you have a wonderful week!

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  2. What a lovely family keepsake! Please do show us an ‘after’ picture. And thanks for sharing a bit about your family. I love looking at old B&W photos!

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  3. What beautiful things to have and to share. It’s not the same kind of coincidence, but I like remembering that my grandmother was born on Armistice Day and died on Valentine’s day.

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  4. What a wonderful memory resource. I have very few keepsakes from my family. Ironically none at all from my father’s side whom I actually knew, but I do have my maternal grandmother’s Bible. I never knew her because there was a terrible family quarrel and she and my mother never spoke to or saw each other after my mother was twenty. One of the most heart-breaking things about Mom’s final illness when she was not getting sufficient oxygen for her brain to be working clearly was that she kept asking me if her mother knew where she was and if I had brought her to see her. She always spoke of her mother as if she didn’t regret what had happened, but that made me wonder just how true that was.

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  5. We have an old Norwegian family Bible that was smuggled out of Norway during the Nazi occupation. It is in terrible shape and I wish I could find a way to have it restored.

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  7. What a lovely family memory to share with us. It must be wonderful to know things about your family that go back so many years. Unfortunatly, I know very little of my family history. I truly enjoyed reading about yours. Thank you for sharing it with us.

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  11. How wonderful to have such an amazing — and old — family heirloom like this. To think that you can turn the pages of the very same bible that your great grandfather used to read. Thanks for sharing this with us all.

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