Census Confusion

Returning to Grandfather, Leonard’s early childhood: he was just three years old when his father James lost his life to the river Ely. 

Between the death of his father and the 1901 census, Leonard found himself as part of his uncle’s household in Abertillery (Fig 1).  We can only speculate as to why this was the case.  Perhaps he just happened to be visiting and it was easier to simply count him as part of the family when completing the census return.  Maybe he was a troubled child following his father’s death and too much for Clara to handle along with two under-fives.  The home at 71 Bridge Street, in which Leonard’s mother Clara was living was a retail shop and the 1901 census (Fig. 2) indicates that she and her brother were establishing a business as booksellers.  Added to this, Clara’s brother Alfred Eggar, himself recently widowed, was living at the same address with his daughter Elizabeth.  The two families were clearly having to deal with a lot of issues, emotional and economic.

How I came to establish finally my great grandparents names, that of Clara’s brother and her second husband was the result of searching the archives; and not without its difficulties.  My initial research that began with the 1901 census return (Fig. 1)  led me not to the father of my grandfather but to his uncle, John and wife, Lilian Fry.  Leonard is living with them in Abertillery and listed as their son. 

My first genealogical lesson: making sense of archive material can lead you in the wrong direction, but which can later prove to be enlightening, hinting at lived experiences as opposed to the simple outlining of chronological facts and administrative registers.

 Fig 1: 1901 Census for John Fry Family

Fig 2: 1901 Census for Clara Fry family

Reconnecting & Remembering

Mum passed away at 2 am, the early hours of Wednesday, 22 April 2020.  Mother was 94 years of age and her death has taken place during the midst of the  worldwide Coronavirus crisis of 2020.  As far as we know, this was not the cause of her death but it has its place in her story.  Mother’s health has been waning for the past two years or so and the struggle of clinging to life has taken its toll on her general well-being  and dignity.  The hope is her death is a happy release.  Already the messages and kind words of condolence are beginning to circulate as the ‘traces’ of Mother’s life are surfaced, acknowledged and remembered by the lives of the people she has touched and have helped define her place in the world. 

With the restrictions in place because of the Coronavirus crisis, Mother’s funeral and burial alongside Father, Donald, is likely to be an estranged affair.  Given the lives of the many people Mother has touched, just ten will be afforded space at her funeral. Mother was an amiable and sociable person so this will be the great sadness of her death.  But at another time and at another place this will be set to rights.  Her family and friends will take their leave as Mother settles into her place among, and with, her family past.



Mother joins  Father, the grandson of James Fry who lost his life on the Clarence Road bridge in 1897.  Father died in 1977, a relatively young man, his absence keenly felt by Mother then left to see two young daughters through their teenage years.  Three older sons had already left the family home to trace their particular paths through life.  Donald had been born on 12 May 1921 to my Grandfather Leonard Alfred (b. 1893) and Grandmother, Leah Alberta (b. 1897). 

There is a time . . .

Some eight years ago I began charting the family tree that I hoped would add a little structure and insight into how we fit into the world in which we find ourselves. The question that has preoccupied me for the past eight years: at what time and with whose time should I begin relating this history.  It was a case of locating a beginning.  However implicit or latent, this was an opportunity to relate life’s ‘time-pieces’ into some sort of meaningful pattern.

But as I am writing, mother is being nursed on and into the final outcome that awaits us all.  It is her time.  It is this timely end that has provided the final impetus to begin a narrative that offers a glimpse into a family ancestry that traces a more extended sense of shared identity.  And of course, mother was an important starting point and origin of the relations and connections that I have made during this research.

May Fry (with flower in hair) c. 1950

The focus of my initial intrigue and research was prompted by a family story about how a great grandfather met his untimely end.  As a boy, a particular memory that stayed with me was one prompted by mother from the front seat of the car. Whenever  we crossed the Clarence Road Bridge, leading to Cardiff Docks, she would say.

“When your Grampy was a young boy his father died on this bridge trying to cycle across  as it  was opening, fell and drowned in the river below.”

To an impressionable young boy this was a spur to set the imagination racing.  I had the vision of my great grandfather racing full pelt along the road as the bridge began to rise into the air, misjudging the effect of gravity on his speed and momentum, the final crushing realisation of the impending fall and the empty space.  The latter part of this sentence is of course me speaking now and not my childish imagination.  What was his name? How old was he?  Why would he attempt such a reckless act? Writing comprises the bridging of innumerable gaps that we attempt to negotiate in order to make sense of the empty spaces of our past, the disconnections of the present and the hope for future resolution.

The empty space my great grandfather failed to negotiate on a fateful day in 1897 further manifested itself for the family he left behind.  My great grandmother, Clara (nee Eggar) was left with two young children, my grandfather, Leonard and younger brother, Ernest and as then, their unborn sister, Clara.  However, this empty space  was soon filled, first by my great grandmother’s brother and subsequently by a second husband.

Beginnings

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