Name: Eliza
"Bessie" Anne Howells
Called by Grandkids: Nain (Northern Welsh for grandmother)
Birth: 1885,
Penrhiwceiber, Wales, UK
Death: 1980,
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Spouse: Daniel
Thomas Jones
Marriage: 1911, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Children: Marjorie Grace, Edwina Hannah, Merle Tydfil, Ivor Howell
Parents: Gabriel Howells and Selina Roberts
Siblings: Ellen Catherine, Howell Gabriel, Selina Jane, Gwen Mary, Hugh Cadvan, Catherine, Edward Gabriel
About: Bessie was the sixth child born to her parents, though the eldest two died in a Whooping Cough outbreak before they were out of toddlerhood. She was the first of their
children to be born in Southern Wales, where they had moved after Gabriel chose to make a living as a mason. He worked for the mines building support structures, which was only mildly better than being a miner, and so he decided
to move his family again when Bessie was still small, this time across to the ocean to Canada, where they settled on his brother's farm in Saskatchewan for a time. Unfortunately, the farm was simply too small to hold so many adults and children, and Gabriel had no interest in farming, having already chosen to give up the family farm back in Wales to move south, so the family moved for a third time, this time to Winnipeg, where they stayed until all the children had left home.
Bessie made a living as a hat maker, and travelled across Canada, and even down into the states, going to the Alaska Yukon Exposition in Seattle with a group. She also joined a choir in Vancouver, and it was there in Vancouver that she met the man she would marry, a fellow Welshman who had come to Canada on holiday with friends. Upon meeting Bessie, though, he chose to stay. The two married and settled in Vancouver. There they raised four
children, and continued to live together in Vancouver until Daniel's death.
Bessie continued on for many years after, surrounded by her ever-growing family of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. By the time of her death, her four children had given her twelve grandchildren, including two children by marriage. And those children had given her nineteen great-grandchildren, a
number that only increased after her death. All of her family remember her fondly even today, as scattered as we are throughout Canada and the US.
 |
| Bessie with her daughter, granddaughter, and two great-granddaughters, ca 1976 |
0 comments :
Post a Comment