The original tragedy unfolded in the north Suffolk town of Hoxne in 1895 amidst a family of nine children ranging in age from 25 to just six years old. I had made notes of the marriages and families of some of these nine; others proved quite elusive and I found nothing. Just two of the nine were daughters. One, the youngest, posed a problem when it came to research, for she appeared to have many names. Her birth names (Honor Louisa) differed from that by which she had appeared in the 1891 census (Lucy), and from that reported in the press (Elizabeth). I'm confident that I've correctly traced her living with an aunt in Stradbroke in 1901 and 1911, but when it came to tracing a marriage or a family, there were a number of choices and nothing to guide me between them.
Her sister Florence had been, according to the newspaper report, "away from home for a couple of weeks". Florence was 19, and earlier that year had given birth to a daughter, Mary Ann. Maybe she was in the process of setting up a home for herself, or maybe just visiting friends or relatives. According to the 1901 census, when the family home broke up, she and one of her younger brothers found a place in the capacious home of another of her mother's sisters. They were living in the village of Norton, which is over towards Bury St Edmunds, and so quite a way from her other siblings, some of whom were still in Hoxne and some at Mendham, near Harleston.
With such a large household, the uncle and aunt, Charles and Sarah Laflin, found it difficult to account for all the relationships, and after listing Leonard and Florence as nephew and niece, they then described Florence's two daughters, Mary Ann and Florence Rose (born in 1897 in neighbouring Finborough), as 'granddaughters' ... which may well be how the girls were treated, amidst their five cousins.
I referred to the distance between the siblings; this didn't mean there was no communication between them, The two brothers in Mendham were living just two doors away from a household that comprised a 'married' (probably widowed) man, his two children under 10, a housekeeper and her 15-year-old son. Obviously a variety of interpretations can be put on this ménage, but word may well have got back to Florence that this man, James Brundish, who was some 18 years her senior, was looking for a more permanent arrangement ... or, alternatively, news of her might have attracted his attention. However it came about, the two were married in the latter part of 1902.
It seems likely that, after their marriage - or even before - Florence and her daughters had replaced the housekeeper and her son in James's house in Mendham. This might have been the 'happily ever after' point but I couldn't find them in the 1911 census to confirm this. There was no trace of Florence, James or his children ... nor of the housekeeper or her son. Eventually I discovered that James had died early in 1904.
Just six months or so after James's death, Florence married William Daniels. William was almost four years younger than Florence, and had been born in the next village, Weybread. In 1911, Florence and William were living in Mendham with his father, their own young daughter, Winifred, and Florence's younger daughter, who was now 13 and going by the name of Rosa. The family was further enhanced by the arrival of Florence's fourth child, Wilfred in 1912. Unfortunately, I've not been able to trace what happened to Mary Ann. Still only 16 in 1911, she was probably in service somewhere, but under which of the three names that she could have used?
Florence died in Mendham in 1932, at the age of 56; William re-married three years later, was still living in Mendham in 1939, and died in 1962 at the age of 82.
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