Aunt Sally

[I have no photograph of Aunt Sally.]

Sally (Sarah Jane Knowles) was born July 3, 1896.  I do not know the date she died.

Sally lived in Hednesford, across from the back of Grandad's cottage.  She married Fred Thomas, a collier, and had a daughter, Freda, born 1921, and still alive and living in Hednesford at Christmas 2003.  Freda married a fellow called Clarence Shaw.  They had a daughter named Linda, who married an insurance broker named John, and went to live "in a little village back of Hednesford Hills" (Muriel).  Linda and John have a son named David. 

My mother seems not to have liked Sally, for reasons I never explored; but we visited with them a number of times. They had chickens, which I thought very exciting.

Sally had had an illegitimate child before marrying Fred.  This child was born in my grandparents' house (February 1st 1919) and raised as one of the younger children.  We always called him "Uncle Jerry", though he was really our cousin, of course.  I met him once, in my infancy, but I know this only by hearsay and cannot remember him at all.  Muriel was very close to him, however.  They were only two years apart in age (Jerry the younger).  Jerry seems to have suffered greatly in the way of insults and snubs from other family members, particularly my uncles, on account of his illegitimacy.  Muriel also reports that Great-grandma Perry, i.e. my mother's mother's mother, when handing out treats like cake or candy, would bypass Jerry in scorn.  Hearing this kind of thing, one can't help but feel that there has been some general improvement in human nature across recent decades.  

Mu: "Jerry was always my loving brother, even in his rages (after the War).  Imagine a boy of sixteen learning from his silly girlfriend that his Auntie Sally was his mother.  We had had a lovely relationship with him until then.  He ran away and joined the army.  They released him on compassionate grounds--under age, Maisie pregnant with Muriel Helen — but of course when we went to war he was called up again.  He spent his 21st birthday in a barn somewhere in Belgium.  He and his team pulled their guns all the way through a hostile Belgium to Dunkirk, where they had to destroy them.  Then he spent several days on the beach waiting to be picked up."  [This was the famous evacuation from Dunkirk, May-June 1940, the low point of the British Army's fortunes in World War Two.]  "Nell and Teddy found him in some barracks in Yorkshire.  They were given permission to take him home to Airedale.  Teddy bathed him, fed him, put him to bed, then later brought him home to us.  We also grew to love his silly wife Maisie.  No matter what he did she was always faithful to him."