A Habit of Dying (37 page)

5 Alethia Joslin

Alethia is also variously recorded as Aletha and Alethea.

Alethia is the original elusive ‘self’ of the 1911 Longlands photograph. She is standing second from the left, next to a visitor, Mr Melville. She and Alice are your great aunts.

James is standing in the back row, second from the right next to his brother Henry in the Longlands 1911 photograph.

According to the postcard sent by their son Henry from training camp in October 1942, James and Alethia were living at 27 Grenville Road, Braintree, Essex.

Albert Joslin (your great uncle) and his family

Notes: 1901cen Lodging in Colchester, unmarried age 22, an agricultural dealer. (Note - recorded as Jocelyn).

This is the Albert sitting to the right of ‘Mama’ as you look at the Longlands 1911 photo.

Beatrice is seated on the left of the middle row of figures in the Longlands 1911 photograph.

1 Beatrice Pelham Joslin

2 Albert Pelham Joslin

1942 Telephone directory gives address of Joslin A P as 16 Ansell Road SW17.

Note, died as a result of a VI bomb, one of the first to land on London.

This is the Albert who is sitting cross legged on the grass second from the right in the Longlands 1911 photograph.

3 Harriet Pelham Joslin

Dorothy, this is the Harriet in the 1911 Longlands photograph. The only record I can find that fits the facts is a death record for Harriet Joslin in 1997. She died a spinster in a care home in Maldon.

Francis Marshall (who married your great aunt Isabella) and their family

1 Phoebe ‘Bee’ Isabella Marshall

Phoebe was the first of the family that I was able to identify with any certainty. It was Phoebe’s grave that I found in Bridekirk churchyard. Phoebe visited your mother together with Ethel Ingleby (Joslin) and Ethel’s children Susan and Paul.

Phoebe is in the Longlands 1911 photograph as ‘Bee’

1.2 Albert William Francis Marshall

Albert is in the Longlands 1911 photograph and is captioned as ‘Albert M’.

Joseph Joslin (your grandfather) and his family

Joseph died without having ever seen his daughter Fanny, possibly without even knowing that he was a father. In the 1911 Longlands photograph he is seated and on the far right of the row.

The photo of Fanny in Longlands album matches your photo from your mother’s papers. The rest of the information you already have so I have not repeated anything but the bare facts here.

1 Fanny Joslin (your mother)

James Dix Myers (who married your great aunt Alethia) and their family

James is standing in the back row, second from the right next to his brother Henry in the Longlands 1911 photograph. According to the postcard sent by their son Henry from training camp in October 1942, James and Alethia were living at 27 Grenville Road, Braintree, Essex.

Note. Alethia is also variously recorded as Aletha and Alethea. Alethia is the original elusive ‘self ’ of the 1911 Longlands photograph. She is
standing second from the left, next to a visitor, Mr. Melville.

1 Henry Dix Myers

Other information discovered: October 1942 at RAF training camp; 1943 at RAF Waterbeach; Died when shot down navigating a bomber over Germany in 1943. He was removed from his original burial place in 1945 and re-interred at Reichswald.

2 Verity Dix Myers

Apart from her birth record and the reference to her on the postcard to her parents, no other record has been found under Myers or Dix Myers or variants of these. She may have emigrated or she may yet still be alive and living in the UK.

Albert Pelham Joslin (your great uncle Albert’s son, which makes him your 1
^st
Cousin ‘once removed’) and his family

1942 Telephone directory gives address of Joslin A P as 16 Ansell Road SW17. He died as a result of a VI bomb, one of the first to land on London. This is the Albert who is sitting cross legged on the grass second from the right in the Longlands 1911 photograph.

1 Ethel Beatrice Joslin

Ethel is the third woman in the picture from your kitchen drawer, together with your mother and Phoebe Marshall. Ethel is your ‘second cousin’, as are her sisters Violet and Rose. Ethel and her family are the once most often featured in the album with the seaside holiday pictures. When she added to the album Ethel wrote herself as ‘self ’.

2 Violet Hannah Joslin

No record of Violet has been found, other than her birth record.

1.3 Rose Elizabeth Joslin