Mary Bannister (1883-1957, later Wilson and Semon) and Martha Bannister (1874-1918, later Myers)
(The following information comes from family notes and records, generously commented upon, supplemented and corrected by MWS and pjmburns recently in the "Brummies who moved to the USA" thread ( https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/threads/brummies-who-moved-to-the-usa.55334/page-4 Posts #114 - #130), and now updated to include much of the latter information. It's a bit of a story of Edwardian Birmingham and beyond. If further help is available, please, I'm still very interested to learn more about Mary Bannister's move to the USA and her life thereafter; and about the circumstances of her sister Martha's migration - and her own, perhaps a little later - from the Black Country to Birmingham).
My great aunt, on my father's mother's side, was Mary/May Bannister, born in 1883 and the younger sister of Martha Bannister, born in 1874 and later married to Charles Myers, my grandfather. Mary, like Martha, her elder sister, was born in the Old Hill area of the Black Country and lived, for some time and reasons unknown, with her sister and Charles (and their three children who included my father) in the family's antique business at 44 Summer Lane, Birmingham. This was when my father was only four years of age. That period ended in 1904 when at the age of 21 Mary decided to emigrate to the USA. She travelled on the "Teutonic" in May of that year. Also on the passenger list was someone else born in Old Hill, George Walter Wilson. He and Mary married almost immediately on arrival in America, in June. There is the likelihood that he had been in the USA previously and in those circumstances perhaps he had returned to collect her. They seemed to have made their home in Cleveland, Ohio. He is recorded as a machinist, she as a dressmaker. Several of George Walter's siblings also emigrated to the U.S.A.
George Walter Wilson died young, in (?1911). Later Mary re-married, to a Fire Officer in Cleveland, Pete Semon. He was a widower with two children, a daughter named Vernis and a son, Arthur. Vernis wrote to my father when he was an eighteen-year-old infantryman in France in 1918 - perhaps that was to offer sympathy for the death of his mother (and her own sister, Martha) who died at the age of 44 in Chessetts Wood/Knowle. The family had moved there for health reasons from inner Birmingham in 1913. Vernis had a daughter, Nancy. Mary never had children of her own. Arthur died young, some time before 1935, Pete in 1938 and Vernis in 1944. Mary survived far longer, dying in 1957 at the age of 74. (There exist online images of both Pete's and Mary's graves).
In 1935, my father had a business visit to the USA and took the opportunity of meeting Mary again. He visited Arthur's grave in what he described as a beautiful cemetery in Cleveland. Below is a picture he took of Pete and Mary/May at that time, when Mary was in her early 50s. They appear to be dressed very appropriately for a graveside visit - if that indeed was the occasion - but look rather more cheerful than one would expect. And there seems to be a singular lack of concern over the state of their Bonny-and-Clyde Oldsmobile's tyres/tires! There is also an earlier image of Mary, a studio portrait, below.
I was still (sort of) living at home at the time of Mary's death in 1957 and my father would no doubt have been saddened by it - assuming that he was informed. But I have no recollection of anything ever being mentioned. If it had been, I expect that I would have shrugged my shoulders and thought that that was just another unknown relative gone west in whom I had not the slightest interest ..... (oh, the indifference of youth, the lack of curiosity!)
The other information I have about my grandmother and her family (from my brother's 1990s, pre-Ancestry work) is that she and her sister were the children of one Joseph Bannister (1851-1925, b. Dudley) and his wife Mary (1853-1929, née Parkes, b. Old Hill - I have an image of her). Coal mines were part of the family background of both and they both died of chest-related diseases (as did at least two of their five daughters). Martha had apparently left home by 1891 and this is a period my brother struggled with in his 1990s researches, as follows.
At some stage it seems that Martha "emigrated" to Birmingham and by the time of her marriage in 1897 she was living at 10, Highbury Road, King's Heath. Her father, Joseph is described as a Coal Dealer but, to quote my brother:
"...... the description of Joseph as a Coal Dealer is strange but may have been a euphemism. Research on the Highbury Road address is unrewarding. Kelly's Directory of 1897 does not list it at all: it may have been developed at that time from part of the lands of Highbury Hall. The Kelly's Directory for 1898 does mention the road, with five named villa residences but no known names as the occupiers; no numbers are listed and certainly no number 10. The 1899 Directory lists in its "Court Pages" my grandfather, Charles Myers, as living at "The Cedars", Highbury Road, Kings Heath ....."
Perhaps Joseph was not a "Coal Dealer" but still a miner, and/or, if truly a Dealer, not one in Birmingham. And so what was the 23-year-old Martha doing in Birmingham? And why was the young Mary with her later, after she and Charles married? Possibly things which may never be explained.
Chris
Images:
Pete and Mary Semon (née Bannister) in Cleveland 1935
Mary, 1920s
Martha Myers (née Bannister) with two of her three children, about 1905.
Charles Myers, Station Road, Knowle, 1920s.
(The following information comes from family notes and records, generously commented upon, supplemented and corrected by MWS and pjmburns recently in the "Brummies who moved to the USA" thread ( https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/threads/brummies-who-moved-to-the-usa.55334/page-4 Posts #114 - #130), and now updated to include much of the latter information. It's a bit of a story of Edwardian Birmingham and beyond. If further help is available, please, I'm still very interested to learn more about Mary Bannister's move to the USA and her life thereafter; and about the circumstances of her sister Martha's migration - and her own, perhaps a little later - from the Black Country to Birmingham).
My great aunt, on my father's mother's side, was Mary/May Bannister, born in 1883 and the younger sister of Martha Bannister, born in 1874 and later married to Charles Myers, my grandfather. Mary, like Martha, her elder sister, was born in the Old Hill area of the Black Country and lived, for some time and reasons unknown, with her sister and Charles (and their three children who included my father) in the family's antique business at 44 Summer Lane, Birmingham. This was when my father was only four years of age. That period ended in 1904 when at the age of 21 Mary decided to emigrate to the USA. She travelled on the "Teutonic" in May of that year. Also on the passenger list was someone else born in Old Hill, George Walter Wilson. He and Mary married almost immediately on arrival in America, in June. There is the likelihood that he had been in the USA previously and in those circumstances perhaps he had returned to collect her. They seemed to have made their home in Cleveland, Ohio. He is recorded as a machinist, she as a dressmaker. Several of George Walter's siblings also emigrated to the U.S.A.
George Walter Wilson died young, in (?1911). Later Mary re-married, to a Fire Officer in Cleveland, Pete Semon. He was a widower with two children, a daughter named Vernis and a son, Arthur. Vernis wrote to my father when he was an eighteen-year-old infantryman in France in 1918 - perhaps that was to offer sympathy for the death of his mother (and her own sister, Martha) who died at the age of 44 in Chessetts Wood/Knowle. The family had moved there for health reasons from inner Birmingham in 1913. Vernis had a daughter, Nancy. Mary never had children of her own. Arthur died young, some time before 1935, Pete in 1938 and Vernis in 1944. Mary survived far longer, dying in 1957 at the age of 74. (There exist online images of both Pete's and Mary's graves).
In 1935, my father had a business visit to the USA and took the opportunity of meeting Mary again. He visited Arthur's grave in what he described as a beautiful cemetery in Cleveland. Below is a picture he took of Pete and Mary/May at that time, when Mary was in her early 50s. They appear to be dressed very appropriately for a graveside visit - if that indeed was the occasion - but look rather more cheerful than one would expect. And there seems to be a singular lack of concern over the state of their Bonny-and-Clyde Oldsmobile's tyres/tires! There is also an earlier image of Mary, a studio portrait, below.
I was still (sort of) living at home at the time of Mary's death in 1957 and my father would no doubt have been saddened by it - assuming that he was informed. But I have no recollection of anything ever being mentioned. If it had been, I expect that I would have shrugged my shoulders and thought that that was just another unknown relative gone west in whom I had not the slightest interest ..... (oh, the indifference of youth, the lack of curiosity!)
The other information I have about my grandmother and her family (from my brother's 1990s, pre-Ancestry work) is that she and her sister were the children of one Joseph Bannister (1851-1925, b. Dudley) and his wife Mary (1853-1929, née Parkes, b. Old Hill - I have an image of her). Coal mines were part of the family background of both and they both died of chest-related diseases (as did at least two of their five daughters). Martha had apparently left home by 1891 and this is a period my brother struggled with in his 1990s researches, as follows.
At some stage it seems that Martha "emigrated" to Birmingham and by the time of her marriage in 1897 she was living at 10, Highbury Road, King's Heath. Her father, Joseph is described as a Coal Dealer but, to quote my brother:
"...... the description of Joseph as a Coal Dealer is strange but may have been a euphemism. Research on the Highbury Road address is unrewarding. Kelly's Directory of 1897 does not list it at all: it may have been developed at that time from part of the lands of Highbury Hall. The Kelly's Directory for 1898 does mention the road, with five named villa residences but no known names as the occupiers; no numbers are listed and certainly no number 10. The 1899 Directory lists in its "Court Pages" my grandfather, Charles Myers, as living at "The Cedars", Highbury Road, Kings Heath ....."
Perhaps Joseph was not a "Coal Dealer" but still a miner, and/or, if truly a Dealer, not one in Birmingham. And so what was the 23-year-old Martha doing in Birmingham? And why was the young Mary with her later, after she and Charles married? Possibly things which may never be explained.
Chris
Images:
Pete and Mary Semon (née Bannister) in Cleveland 1935
Mary, 1920s
Martha Myers (née Bannister) with two of her three children, about 1905.
Charles Myers, Station Road, Knowle, 1920s.
