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BANNISTER, Mary and Martha

Click on each to see date and publication (posted paragraph by paragraph so it is large enough).
Read the incredible story of Fred's bravery.
(Whit Monday was June 7th in 1915)
 

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ChrisM said:
The assumption has to be that there was a formal divorce between Selina Elizabeth and Solomon: otherwise both of their subsequent marraiges would of course have been bigamous.

Is there any disagreement with that interpretation?

Thanks very much, as usual, for the ongoing interest.

Chris
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Not sure how long divorce proceedings took in those days but I would surmise that with the time frame involved it is probable that Solomon's second marriage was bigamous and, with Solomon in America, likely Selina's as well. As I said on different thread who was going to check.

Selina's son Joseph Leonard came back to the Midlands (some time after 1927). He was in Coventry in 1939 and death was reg. there in 1951.
 
ChrisM said:
Whilst Selina Elizabeth is a bit of a side issue to the life of her sisters, Martha and Mary, nevertheless her story is fascinating! And reinforces the remarkable links which this Black Country family had, and the Birmingham families to which they were connected, with the USA. I have been trying to absorb it and make sense of it all.

From my brother's research and my father's 1974 recollection, we have Selina Elizabeth, born in 1876 in Old Hill, marrying, at the age of 16, a Solomon Stokes (son of Solomon), aged 19, of Rowley Regis on 23 October 1892 in Cradley Heath; and having four children, based on Tyneside but with three of them with their grandparents in 1911 and possibly all four being brought up there. (One of the children, Fred, will be awarded the D.C.M in the Great War when in the Northumberland Fusiliers).

But meanwhile it looks as though Solomon Stokes enters the USA on 28 January 1902 and is the subject of a naturalisation record in 1914. Annie Austin (born in Birmingham) emigrates in 1903 to join him and they marry there, in Pennsylvania. Solomon states then that he has not previously been married.

The delicate assumption seems to have been that Selina died young for these circumstances to have occurred. But it seems that she didn't. She remarried in 1915 to Albert Stone (b. 1879, St. George's, Bermuda) and survived to a reasonable age, dying in 1949. (Again, I have no recollection of hearing that news but it's probable that my father had lost all connection with this further great-aunt by then).

So I think that the interpretation has to be something along the following lines:

Solomon and Selina Elizabeth were youngsters. Marriage came early, in 1892, perhaps for the usual reason. Three further children subsequently appeared. After some years of marriage the relationship broke down. (Possibly this happened quite early, as it seems that the children spent much of their childhood with their grandmother and my father would have been old enough to be aware of that, with cousins of his own age living in his grannie's house). Perhaps Annie Austin had appeared on the scene. In 1902 Solomon emigrated, followed a year later by Annie, and they married in Pennsylvania, with Solomon denying any previous marriage. For one reason or another Selina Elizabeth had been by then in Jarrow for some years, one assumes initially with Solomon. She spent the rest of her life there, re-marrying to Albert Stone in 1915 at the age of 39 and eventually dying, a widow, in 1949 at the age of 73.

The assumption has to be that there was a formal divorce between Selina Elizabeth and Solomon: otherwise both of their subsequent marraiges would of course have been bigamous.

Is there any disagreement with that interpretation?

Thanks very much, as usual, for the ongoing interest.

Chris
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Just a little piece of rhetorical information: the fact that they left the Black Country and settled in Ohio and Pennsylvania , two states with similar old time early manufacturing environments. Because those states are large there are also some beautiful areas. Would the initial attraction be that their skill sets from the Black Country have been useful and therefore financially beneficial.
Not look to get off track but for the initial reason for that first family migration.
 
From the war diaries on relevant dates for Fred's regiment (just to add extra info - a bit off thread title - sorry)
1757585652343.png

1757585740635.png
 
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MWS said:
Not sure how long divorce proceedings took in those days but I would surmise that with the time frame involved it is probable that Solomon's second marriage was bigamous and, with Solomon in America, likely Selina's as well. As I said on different thread who was going to check.

Selina's son Joseph Leonard came back to the Midlands (some time after 1927). He was in Coventry in 1939 and death was reg. there in 1951.
Click to expand...
Point very well taken! When I first came to the US in 1962 I worked with an Irish immigrant (was a denture technician in Ireland) who had a son older than me. Over time we became friends and got to know him well. He and his wife said numerous times that many left the old country to put the past behind them and for a new start. I experienced that with Italian and Polish immigrant families. Not so much Germans because I did not know many. Where I was NJ/NY was mostly settled by Italians, Irish, Slovak and some Germans and of course Dutch long ago. NYC was originally New Amsterdam settled by Peter Stuyvesant (my family name Dye has Dutch ancestry), story for another day….Great thread!
 
Further info on Selina's children, this time for John and Alice.

It appears that if John did move to the northeast, then he didn't remain there for long as he married in 1918, reg. Dudley. In 1921 they are with in-laws in Rowley Regis and in 1939 he is in Warwick. His death is possibly reg. 1952 Nuneaton.

And it seems unlikely that Alice ever went to the NE. She appears to have been a servant in Derbyshire in 1911 but by Dec 1911 she is back in the area to marry a George Naylor. In 1921 they are in Rowley Regis and in 1939 they are in Coventry but her death may have been reg. 1960 back in Rowley Regis.

So both not far from Joseph.
 
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This snippet from 1903 may explain Solomon leaving for the US. He apparently deserted Selina in 1902.
She was brave enough to apply to the courts for maintenance and this appeared in 1903. Note she is named as Elizabeeth as she appears on several censuses.
He waas in Longton - I wonder where the wpman he "married" in America lived?
County Advertiser & Herald for Staffordshire and Worcestershire - Saturday 17 January 1903.jpg
County Advertiser & Herald for Staffordshire and Worcestershire - Saturday 17 January 1903 las...jpg
 
Wonderful! That explains a lot. I wonder if she ever saw any 15 shillings; I doubt it and the emigration would certainly have put an end to it, anyway. Poor Elizabeth, I wonder how she survived, with four young children. Grannie Bannister to the rescue, by the sound of it. But she never came back to the Midlands and I wonder when Albert appeared on the scene, up there, and she finally started a new life.

We have assumed that Solomon went off to the land of opportunity in order to start his new life there with his new love. Still true, no doubt. But with an added incentive for him - to retain ALL of any future earnings and not having to pass on a hefty chunk to his deserted wife, so that she could feed their children. The timing of this suggests that any formal annulment of the marriage is even more unlikely, and certainly not before Solomon remarries in the USA.

(Was about to post, suggesting that we might have exhausted the US connection - but here we are, with further breaking news!! Whatever next?)

Thanks so much.

Chris
 
Just speculating but it would seem a bit random for Elizabeth to up sticks and move to the NE on her own, so she probably met Albert locally and then went up there with him.

On the 1911 census that they married in 1902 and though there was no marriage at that time I wouldn't be surprised if that is when they met. They had no children to 'legitimise'.

I even wonder if they ever learnt that Solomon went to America.
 
MWS said:
Just speculating but it would seem a bit random for Elizabeth to up sticks and move to the NE on her own, so she probably met Albert locally and then went up there with him.

On the 1911 census that they married in 1902 and though there was no marriage at that time I wouldn't be surprised if that is when they met. They had no children to 'legitimise'.

I even wonder if they ever learnt that Solomon went to America.
Click to expand...
I think your speculation/assumption might be quite correct.
 
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I had assumed (and probably without good reason) that the whole family, including Solomon, had moved up there. Possibly she disappeared after establishing the children comfortably with her mother and thus ensuring their well-being. But again, why?

Chris
 
I feel that there has to be something further in her motivation than job-seeking, important as that would have been to her - something more personal, perhaps. Why swap one heavily industrialised area for another, so far away from her roots and where her children remained? Perhaps Albert, for reasons unknown, had time in the Black Country and they met there (as Richard has suggested)........ That sounds to me more likely than a widow heading off into the entirely unknown, far from home.

Chris
 
I searched with both but with no luck.

Difficult to know which one is correct. If it had been 1901 & 1911 then I'd be inclined to believe the latter but as both should've been filled in by themselves I don't know.
 
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