April birthdays

April is the month when we have lots of birthdays to celebrate from the England branch of my tree.

Henry Lewis England (my grandfather) had three daughters – two had birthdays in April – my mother Phyllis and her sister Margaret. Sadly the sisters have now passed away.

I also have my birthday in April and so does my cousin Leigh, the son of Margaret.

Rae, who lives in Melbourne often visited in April, to meet us all as well. She also has an April birthday. Rae’s grandmother was Gladys, the sister of Henry Lewis England. I have just had morning tea with Raelene while she was visiting Hobart this week.

So we have two siblings and three cousins as April babes, but when I checked my database there was actually over 220 April birthdays.

Sue Leigh Raelene Bronwyn Philip at beach

 

Three birthday girls
Phyllis, Sue and Margaret lunching at Lachlan

Readers: Do you have one special  month where many birthdays are celebrated?

Siblings in black and white

This time I do have some photos relating to my dad’s side of the tree – the Smith family.

This is my father as a young boy, his mother and her brother (actually her half brother). Nan was very close to her brother Jack, who we knew as Bomber. He lived not far from Nan and he served in WWII and would often send nan postcards and letters from wherever he was serving.

Three more siblings of my nan are Ruby, Jimmy and Max. I have my nan’s photo album and she has many black and white photos of her siblings and nieces and nephews.

Now looking to my mum’s side of the tree where we have lots of photos of sibling groups.

These two photos represent the three England sisters. My aunty Margaret and her older sister Iris who died aged 10, then the second photo is my aunty Margaret with her younger sister Phyllis, my mum who was born a month before Iris died.

My grandmother Hannah England nee Davey was always very close to her sister Elizabeth Boxhall nee Davey known as Lizzie.

In this photo they even look alike – Hannah on left and Lizzie on right. The two sisters also kept in close touch with their other siblings especially those who lived in southern Tasmania. Hannah and Lizzie would often be together at different events. This photo shows two of Lizzie’s children Reuben and George Boxhall playing on the beach.

Many of the Davey siblings got together at the wedding of my aunty Margaret in 1949. Pictured above are Frederick, Doris, Hannah, Lizzie and George. Frederick is the youngest of the siblings and was born a month before his father died in 1914.

I also have one on mum’s paternal side of her father Henry Lewis England with his sister Ruby May England. This was also taken at Margaret’s wedding.

 

Readers: How many black and white photos do you have of siblings?

Siblings in colour

I decided to divide my photos into colour and black and white for these couple of posts about siblings.

My dad is an only child so I have no coloured photos from his side of the family.

This first photo shows three sets of siblings:

  • Myself and my brother on the left
  • My mother Phyllis and her sister Margaret in the middle
  • Margaret’s children Bronwyn and Leigh on the right
3 sets of siblings

I have no children but my brother is married with two children named Georgia and Alexander. Georgia is now married with a child of her own so this photo is when my niece and nephew were a bit younger. Alexander lives in Melbourne and works for the Australian Ballet Company.

In 2011, I took my brother and the two children to America for a holiday visiting Grand Canyon, Disneyland, Legoland and other places around California. Unfortunately we were in San Diego getting ready to visit Sea World when we found out about the twin towers being hit by planes.

Georgia and Alexander

Both of my first cousins Bronwyn and Leigh also married.

Bronwyn and her husband Allan Ryan had three children. Unfortunately Bronwyn passed away at the young age of 62 in 2013. The photo below is of her three children: Kelli who has three franchises with the food company LivEat in Tasmania, Shannon who worked in Western Australia but moved to Queensland and Kaide who owns a tool company in Hobart. All three of these have married and have their own children who will appear in the cousins post later in the month.

Kelli Kaide Shannon

Leigh and his wife Susan Lacey have two children: Chantel, who is married with three children, lives in Melbourne and works for Spotlight Retail Group as Head of Design and Innovation and Shaun, born with cerebral palsy but is now living in a community home where he enjoys drama and photography.

 

Chantel Shaun

Readers: What is the largest number of siblings you have in your immediate family?

In mine it is the Ryan children with 3 but I could include the England family as my mother and her sister actually had another sister who died when she was 10 years old, only a month after my mother was born.