I
have a new challenge. I am looking for information that will tell me what life
was like for Violet Walker, my wife’s half-aunt. Sometimes we get chasing
family lines so much we forget about the individuals – to paraphrase, we don’t
see the trees because of the forest. I thought it was time to try to focus on
people, one at a time. That might tell me more about family dynamics.
Half-aunt
is a strange term. It just means that she was a half-sister to my mother-in-law.
That’s where Violet’s life took its first divergence from the main line family.
We
know when and where Violet was born and died as we have the documentation: born
25 December 1905 (Christmas Day) at 81 Oran Street, Glasgow; died 22 September
1982 at Hairmyres Hospital, East Kilbride, Glasgow, her usual residence being
47 Closeburn Street, Glasgow.
Violet
was illegitimate. We don’t know who her father was or whether she ever found
out. That’s an important part of her story that we would like to discover more
about. She never married nor had children, so she was the end of a line. That
removes an important source of data – bloodline.
Her
birth place, 81 Oran Street, was the same residence shown on her mother’s marriage
record which occurred three years later. 81 Oran Street is also given as the
place of death for one of Violet’s aunts, aged 11, in 1906. So it is possible
that was also the residence of her maternal grandparents, John and Sarah Walker, and that Lizzie lived at home until her marriage. Violet appears on the 1911
Scotland census, living with her grandparents on Fernie Street which intersects
Oran Street.
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Part of ordnance
map showing Oran and Fernie Streets in Glasgow, published 1899
The
story is that, following, the marriage of Lizzie Walker to Alexander Cooper,
Violet was left with her grandparents to be raised. More information is being
sought about that state of affairs.
We
are aware that she was a dancer. Rumour has it that she was an exotic dancer.
Her death record says her occupation was “Dancer (retired)” which gives us
something to go on.
We
have only one photo of Violet, taken in 1928, brought by my mother-in-law when
she immigrated to Canada in 1930. Perhaps other family members have others
which we will check.
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Violet Walker,
standing, with a friend, about 1928
As
I was writing this short blog piece I found out that I had more information
about Violet and her family but just had not put the pieces together. Again,
it’s the problem with seeing only the forest sometimes. I will begin digging
into more records in my files to see what else I can put together, not just for
Violet but for her mother, half-siblings and grandparents as well.
I
think the search for more about the life of Violet Walker will prove
interesting but also challenging. It’s just another step in assembling the
stories of our ancestors. It is important and valuable to know how people lived
not just when.
Wayne
Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in
England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has
published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy in several
family history society journals. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting
services through his business, Family History Facilitated
