Saturday Snapshot

Published on by Margaret

A few weeks ago I posted a photo of my grandfather on Alyce’s Saturday Snapshot. Today I’m posting a photo of his older sister Sarah, known to my grandfather as ‘Our Sal’ and to me as Aunty Sally. She didn’t live near me and my family when I was growing up but came to stay with us for a week each year. I used to love her visits.

This is how she looked when I knew her:

and this is her taken when she was a young woman:

and also:

Aunty Sally was born on 26 August 1878 in Mold, Flintshire, Wales. She died on 15 April 1967 aged 88. For many years she had been Matron and Housekeeper at Wellingborough School, a private school in Northamptonshire. She had worked until she was 78 and until she became ill she had visited the school chapel each week to arrange the flowers.

She had trained as a nurse in a London Hospital and had worked for a while in Chile as a children’s nurse. She first went to Wellingborough in 1940 as a member of the staff of Weymouth College which was evacuated to Wellingborough School.

By the time that I knew her she was an old lady or at least she seemed so to me, but she was great fun with loads of energy and interested in everything we were doing. She and my father used to sit up late at night, talking and sharing cigarettes, long after we’d all gone to bed. She bought us lovely presents, which were always different – not just an Easter Egg but a large Easter Chick, probably made of papier-mâché and decorated with glitter, containing small chocolate eggs. I’d never seen anything like it before and after I’d eaten the eggs I kept the chick for years afterwards until it fell to pieces. I wish I knew more about her.

20 thoughts on “Saturday Snapshot”

  1. Such lovely memories you have of your aunt. She did well to be active and working until 78.

    I do love to see old photos and hear the stories behind them.
    Thanks for sharing

    carol

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  2. Strange to think of old people’s lives before we knew them, as if they didn’t actually exist until we became aware of them. You have some great photos and great memories of Aunty Sally

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  3. These are great photos, and remind me of some of my grandmother, whom I knew when she was very “old,” too; now I don’t think she was THAT old, since she was “only” in her late sixties when I was born. LOL

    She was 88 when she died, too, in 1961. I loved visiting with her and hearing some of her stories. I wish I had heard more, as well.

    I think it’s great that you shared these photos and memories. They are like treasures for our memory books.

    Here’s MY SATURDAY SNAPSHOT

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  5. Isn’t it funny how some people we know seem “old”. I know at least one of my mother’s friends I’ve always thought of as “old”, I don’t remember her growing old, she was just old, and yet she died not too much older than I am now, and I don’t think of myself as old. I think you know a fair bit about a relative that was not too close geographically to you. I know little about my aunts.

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  6. What a lovely post commemorating your aunt. I love the oldest photo of her. It sounds like she was an extraordinary woman.

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  11. She is so stylish in all of those photos! She must have seen so much history. I can sympathize with the wanting to know more. Most of my older relatives died before I became an adult so I didn’t get to have adult conversations with them. (My grandfather was the youngest in a large family and didn’t have his first kid until he was 41. Even though most of my great-aunts and uncles lived till their 90s, most died when I was a baby, the last died when I was in my teens.)

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  15. I love the photos of your aunt. She must have lived an interesting life. I wonder what it was like to be nurse during the second world war.

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  17. I love the pictures of your aunt – very stylish. I have great memories of my great-aunt who was my favorite person in the family. These memories are precious; I’m glad you haven’t let yours fade.

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  18. When I was young everyone seemed so old and now everyone seems young!

    I’m enjoying the old photos shared and the stories that go with them. Your aunt was a remarkable lady.

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  19. I love seeing old family photos and hearing more about the people in them. Thanks for sharing these photos and your memories.

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