Letters from the Past

Grand Aunt May Neeham ~ far left.

Grand Aunt Ethel Steen (Neeham) ~ far right

Grandmother Georgina Chapman (Neeham) ~ bottom.

Aunt May never married.

Aunt Ethel married William Steen and had two children

Grandmother Georgina married Fredrick Chapman and had seven children

Great Grandmother

 Charlotte Augusta Needham

Great Grandfather
Stourton Samuel Lionel Needham

Great Grandparents
Aunt Ethel
Students at boarding school

Parents left their children at boarding schools in England during this period of time as they worked in far away places such as India, Kenya, and South Africa.  I suspect this was a great influence on Aunt May's decision to travel to India for her life's work. 

Whilst in the United Kingdom in the early nineteen nineties my distant cousins Micheal and Bill Steen gave to my father and me letters that had been written by Dad's mother Georgina Chapman to her sister Ethel Steen.  These letters, for the most part, dated from the late forties to the late fifties.  These letters were mostly updates on Georgina's children and their life's affairs.  In additional to these letters, the Steens gave us photo copies of letters from Georgina's Sister May to her parents, Stourton Samuel Lionel Needham and Charlotte Augusta Needham.  The letters, which were written in the nineteen teens and  early nineteen twenties, were from Baroda, India (http://www.baroda.com/city.html) where Aunt May was the head mistress of an all girls school.  Grandma Georgina had two sisters, May and Ethel.  Georgina's  parents  owned and operated a boarding school in Tunbridge Wells, England.  The Aunt May letters are extremely interesting from both a family point of view and from a historical point of view.  As an illustration, an early letter from Aunt May, which I can't seem to find at the present, describes her initial trip to India aboard a freighter.  They sailed the Mediterranean Sea at night in hopes that the Kaiser's gun boats would not intercept them.  It was during the height of the first world war.  I had visions of an Ernest Hemingway novel as I read descriptive passages of the letter.  I will post the letter to the blog if and when I find it.  She obviously had a great spirit of adventure and independent free spirit in her own right ~ a women ahead of her time.

In the weeks ahead I will attempt to transcribe a few of her letters and post them to the blog.  The letters are photo copies and are very hard to read/decipher so please bear with me.  Please feel free to correct and interpret along with me.  I will attempt literal transcriptions, i.e. abbreviations and all.

The first letter is as follows,

Baroda Jan. 2rd 1920.  I am hoping you have had a very happy Xmas week and New Year's Day and that 1920 will be a time of much happiness to you and all.  We have had a very nice time with dinners and teas and picnics.  I have had a lot of presents for Xmas, cakes and fruit this year, and today a haunch of venison turned up so must invite some one to help eat it.  Will you come in dearest and do your share!  The mail brought me your and Ethel's letters yesterday Ethel's for my birthday.  But the strange thing is that I've not had a single Xmas letter from the family except one from Willie from Farnham.  I had one from you on Xmas Day itself, but it didn't mention Xmas so some must have gone astray.  Probably they'll turn up a few days late.  The mails have been much more regular lately.  I was much interested in your news of Gina.  I must write to her though she owes me a letter naughty girl.  I am still very busy and shall be up to March when we have a week's holiday.  Good bye dearest  Baroda Jan. 9th 1920.  Just a note only today as I'm out to dinner.  But I can't let the mail go without a line.  Will send a decent letter next week.  Much love, May.

Comments:  Interesting the first part was dated 1/2/20 and last dated 1/9/20.  Obviously the postal service was not an everyday thing as it is now.  Receiving a haunch of venison in India is an interesting thought.

Grandmother Georgina (Gina) was as I found in reading these letters considered "naughty" at several levels.  Much to the embarrassment of her Church of England  parents, she married a divorced man in England with two children, immediately started having children of her own, set sail for the United States where she ultimately had seven children total and eventually divorced her husband who tried to kill her.  If nothing her parents raised free spirited daughters!!  Gave them lots to talk and worry about!

More later,

Dad/Gordon/et.al.

p.s.  Are sisters to your grandmother grand aunts or great aunts?