"In each family a story is playing itself out, . . .

                                    and each family's story embodies its hope and despair."  --Auguste Napier

Erik,   
      John and Ellen Strutt were Momma's grandparents (on her father's side), and she remembers quite a lot about them.                                                   --Mom
     
                         

     "The name of Strutt is one of the oldest names in the village of Oxton.  The Strutt name was first recorded in Oxton's church in the 1600's.  Another old name in the village is Sherbrook.  They were the village squires and landowners and lived in Oxton Hall, the manor house. (A manor house is a country house that belongs to the gentry.)  John Strutt, my granddad and Albert Edward Strutt, my dad, worked as gardeners at Oxton Hall.
     John and Ellen Strutt, my grandparents, lived in a three-story, red-brick house at the corner of Flats Lane, and owned by Squire Sherbrook.  There was no running water in the home, only a cold-water tap outside the kitchen door.  Their ten children were born in that home, seven sons and three daughters, one of whom died at age 9.
     A piece of land, called 'The Croft,' adjoined the house.  It was there that my granddad raised bantam hens.  There were also fruit trees on the property.
     The Methodist Chapel stood opposite their home; during the late 1800's, the chapel was the center of a religious revival in the area.
     As children Molly and I were taken often to visit our grandparents.  We looked forward to these visits for we would ride on a Barton's bus to Oxton which was a distance of seven miles from Arnold. A Barton's bus was a single level bus, red in color, and ran often through the villages.  On the way to Oxton there was a water splash that ran across the road and the driver would speed up to go over the splash becasue he knew we kids would scream out.
     Once there, Uncle Pat (Ernest) would slip us a few pennies each, and off we went to the village sweet shop.  We'd stand there amongst the jars of sweeties and boxes of toffees and try to decide what to buy with our pennies.  Then he would take us to a lady named Nell Gibson who made the best ice cream.  We would also enjoy looking for eggs in Granddad Jack's henhouse.  Granddad, along with Uncle Pat and Uncle Fred, cultivated three allotments with all manner of fruit, berries, and vegetables.  We delighted in picking and eating our fill.
      I always felt intimidated around Granny Strutt.  Even in the 1930's she still wore the dress of the early 1900's--an ankle length brown skirt and a white cotton long-sleeved blouse with a drawstring neckline.  Over the skirt she wore a full length apron.  Her gray hair was pulled back into a tight bun, and her face was deeply wrinkled.  I don't ever remember her showing affection to us grandchildren.  I don't remember ever having a kiss from her.

     Granny Strutt passed away in 1938 at age 79. I remember her funeral.  There were no cars allowed, and her oak coffin was placed on a bier (cart).  Two men in black top hats and cut away coats walked in front holding the handles and two more walked behind the bier.   The family followed the bier, walking two by two, starting with the eldest son and his wife.   The grandchildren followed in order at the rear. As we walked through the village to the church, friends and neighbors were waiting to join the end of the procession, behind the family.  There was quite a gathering as we entered the church.
      Granddad Strutt was the most wonderful gentleman.  He was small in stature, had white hair, and a white walrus mustache.  He was always dapper, dressed in a navy blue suit with waistcoat (vest), even in the house, and he was spotlessly clean.  I don't every remember him being angry; he was very soft-spoken.  Mam thought the world of him, and when he lay dying, she was the one he asked for, and she sat beside him for almost a week.  I think she truly felt she had lost a wonderful friend when her father-in-law died.  He died in 1943 at age 83."       --Joan Shelton
   
   

"The family."

     "The family.  We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.  ~Erma Bombeck


Erik,
     I know a little about Poppa's mother's family, Charles and Anna Langford.  They would be my great-grandfather and great-grandmother.  Dad wrote down his memories of them.
                                                                  --Mom



     Charles Langford was a stonemason who worked on many churches around Nottingham-
shire. According to Poppa, he was a tyrant at home.  He was tall with the typical handlebar 'tash' (mustache) of the day.

typical work of a stonemason

a stonemason working on an arch--note the
bow tie?

     He enlisted or was drafted into the army in World War 1 at the age of 37.  He survived the war, returning home in 1919, caught the Spanish flu, and died in 1920 at the age of 42.  At his death he left his wife, Anna Maria Langford and 10 children, 7 girls and 3 boys--Ada, Ellen (Nell), Emily (my grandmother), Arthur, Richard, Connie, Mabel, Charles, Florrie, and Hilda.

Bit of history:  "The 1918 flu (the "Spanish flu") was an influenza pandemic. It was an unusually severe and deadly pandemic that spread across the world.  Most victims were healthy young adults.
The pandemic lasted from January 1918 to December 1920.  Between 50 and 130 million died, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history.  Even using the lower estimate of 50 million people, 3% of the world's population (which was 1.86 billion at the time) died of the disease. Some 500 million, or 27%, were infected."

'World War I did not cause the flu, but the close troop quarters and massive troop movements hastened the pandemic and probably both increased transmission and augmented mutation; it may also have increased the lethality of the virus. Some speculate the soldiers' immune systems were weakened by malnourishment, as well as the stresses of combat and chemical attacks, increasing their susceptibility."

'The fetid, rat-rich, body-rotting trenches provided ideal breeding grounds for the virus that would be responsible for more than five times as many deaths as the war itself.'

On Armistice Day, 1918, Britain is in the grip of the Spanish flu.

   


     Charles's wife, Anna Maria Langford, was, according to Poppa who knew her, a 'strong willed woman who would drink a jug of ale every day of her life.'  (Probably because she had 10 children!)  The children all lived to adulthood.
     She was a very good looking woman with auburn hair and dark eyes.  She had breast cancer at 56, had her breasts removed, and lived on until age 72.  One of her 10 children preceded her in death.  Florrie died in 1942 at age 42 of breast cancer.