My grandmother, Kate Sanders, was second in a middle class family of eight children, four brothers and four sisters. Her parents were her father, John Coveney Sanders, a merchant clerk, and her mother, Emily (née Dennis). As a child she was a gifted scholar and pianist and immediately became an assistant and trainee teacher (unpaid) at her school on completion of her education at 16. However, though she wanted very much to be a teacher her father died suddenly when she was 18 and as there was no money had to abandon this hope. She took on sewing work and lived in rented accommodaton with two of her sisters. Life was hard and precarious with little income so she very soon decided to marry in 1898 a local bachelor, my grandfather, George Wood, who was the eldest son in an established well-known and prosperous Bristol business of undertakers.
During their marriage she continued to work at home as a skilled tailoress because her husband received low wages from his astute but otherwise mean and selfish father, and also liked to play the piano at which she was highly accomplished, having had lessons before her own father's death from the distinguished Bristol Cathedral organist, Sir George Riseley. My mother recalls her playing Chopin's Waltz in A minor Op. 32 No. 4.
In 1909 she finally gave birth to her first child, a daughter, Phyllis Kate, on December 31. It is likely she had previously sought medical advice and perhaps treatment since she had then been married 12 years. In 1912 she gave birth to a son, John. However, he very sadly died from croup aged only 2 years. On September 23, 1914 my mother, Frances Alice, was born. Finally, on January 8, 1917 she gave birth to a son, Kenneth Leslie.
She was never really very compatible with her husband because of his quick violent temper and lack of similar interests. She was talkative, highly strung and sociable and enjoyed any form of tasteful modest excitement such as fairgrounds and boat trips. At 5 feet in height with dark brown hair and dark brown eyes she sometimes cycled too with her younger, favourite brother, Frederick. Her favourite scent was natural lavender and she would place silk lavender bags containing the dried flowers in drawers with linen and clothes to give them this fragrance.
Kate planted a dark blue clematis in the rear garden of their home at 10 Sandford Road, Hotwells, Bristol which both my mother and her sister, Phyllis, remember well. In fact my aunt Phyllis had a similar clematis planted in her rear garden long after in the late 1960s as a way of being nearer her spirit whom she adored. Most touchingly, according to aunt Phyllis, her selfless mother would often pretend to have eaten meals earlier she prepared when asked why she did not join them at the table so that her children could have sufficient as money was so scarce.
In 1923, primarily because her son was being disciplined over severely by her husband, she decided to leave him and take her family to live with her younger sister, Frances, (known in the family as Marion) who had been widowed almost immediately after her marriage but because of her husband's generous Canadian war pension was financially of easy means. This never occurred. On December 17, 1923, after spending an afternoon at her spinster aunt Kate's grocery shop in Saint Michael's Hill, (Bristol) she hurriedly left to catch a tram and in her haste to be home for her husband's dinner forgot to be watchful in the dusk and walked around the waiting tram into the road (Perry Road, opposite The Red Lodge) to mount and was knocked down by a passing Armstrong Siddeley car. She was taken to the Bristol Royal Infirmary Hospital in a coma. On December 19, wihout regaining consciousness, she very tragically died. She was just 44 years of age.
By all accounts, almost everyone liked and respected her excitable wit and humour and her spirited conscientiousness and kindness. She was buried on Christmas Eve, 1923. Her death adversely effected the young family because her income ceased and their care and education were thereafter largely unconsidered. Her coffin was interred in her husband's family vault.
During their marriage she continued to work at home as a skilled tailoress because her husband received low wages from his astute but otherwise mean and selfish father, and also liked to play the piano at which she was highly accomplished, having had lessons before her own father's death from the distinguished Bristol Cathedral organist, Sir George Riseley. My mother recalls her playing Chopin's Waltz in A minor Op. 32 No. 4.
In 1909 she finally gave birth to her first child, a daughter, Phyllis Kate, on December 31. It is likely she had previously sought medical advice and perhaps treatment since she had then been married 12 years. In 1912 she gave birth to a son, John. However, he very sadly died from croup aged only 2 years. On September 23, 1914 my mother, Frances Alice, was born. Finally, on January 8, 1917 she gave birth to a son, Kenneth Leslie.
She was never really very compatible with her husband because of his quick violent temper and lack of similar interests. She was talkative, highly strung and sociable and enjoyed any form of tasteful modest excitement such as fairgrounds and boat trips. At 5 feet in height with dark brown hair and dark brown eyes she sometimes cycled too with her younger, favourite brother, Frederick. Her favourite scent was natural lavender and she would place silk lavender bags containing the dried flowers in drawers with linen and clothes to give them this fragrance.
Kate planted a dark blue clematis in the rear garden of their home at 10 Sandford Road, Hotwells, Bristol which both my mother and her sister, Phyllis, remember well. In fact my aunt Phyllis had a similar clematis planted in her rear garden long after in the late 1960s as a way of being nearer her spirit whom she adored. Most touchingly, according to aunt Phyllis, her selfless mother would often pretend to have eaten meals earlier she prepared when asked why she did not join them at the table so that her children could have sufficient as money was so scarce.
In 1923, primarily because her son was being disciplined over severely by her husband, she decided to leave him and take her family to live with her younger sister, Frances, (known in the family as Marion) who had been widowed almost immediately after her marriage but because of her husband's generous Canadian war pension was financially of easy means. This never occurred. On December 17, 1923, after spending an afternoon at her spinster aunt Kate's grocery shop in Saint Michael's Hill, (Bristol) she hurriedly left to catch a tram and in her haste to be home for her husband's dinner forgot to be watchful in the dusk and walked around the waiting tram into the road (Perry Road, opposite The Red Lodge) to mount and was knocked down by a passing Armstrong Siddeley car. She was taken to the Bristol Royal Infirmary Hospital in a coma. On December 19, wihout regaining consciousness, she very tragically died. She was just 44 years of age.
By all accounts, almost everyone liked and respected her excitable wit and humour and her spirited conscientiousness and kindness. She was buried on Christmas Eve, 1923. Her death adversely effected the young family because her income ceased and their care and education were thereafter largely unconsidered. Her coffin was interred in her husband's family vault.
My grandmother, Kate Sanders, was second in a middle class family of eight children, four brothers and four sisters. Her parents were her father, John Coveney Sanders, a merchant clerk, and her mother, Emily (née Dennis). As a child she was a gifted scholar and pianist and immediately became an assistant and trainee teacher (unpaid) at her school on completion of her education at 16. However, though she wanted very much to be a teacher her father died suddenly when she was 18 and as there was no money had to abandon this hope. She took on sewing work and lived in rented accommodaton with two of her sisters. Life was hard and precarious with little income so she very soon decided to marry in 1898 a local bachelor, my grandfather, George Wood, who was the eldest son in an established well-known and prosperous Bristol business of undertakers.
During their marriage she continued to work at home as a skilled tailoress because her husband received low wages from his astute but otherwise mean and selfish father, and also liked to play the piano at which she was highly accomplished, having had lessons before her own father's death from the distinguished Bristol Cathedral organist, Sir George Riseley. My mother recalls her playing Chopin's Waltz in A minor Op. 32 No. 4.
In 1909 she finally gave birth to her first child, a daughter, Phyllis Kate, on December 31. It is likely she had previously sought medical advice and perhaps treatment since she had then been married 12 years. In 1912 she gave birth to a son, John. However, he very sadly died from croup aged only 2 years. On September 23, 1914 my mother, Frances Alice, was born. Finally, on January 8, 1917 she gave birth to a son, Kenneth Leslie.
She was never really very compatible with her husband because of his quick violent temper and lack of similar interests. She was talkative, highly strung and sociable and enjoyed any form of tasteful modest excitement such as fairgrounds and boat trips. At 5 feet in height with dark brown hair and dark brown eyes she sometimes cycled too with her younger, favourite brother, Frederick. Her favourite scent was natural lavender and she would place silk lavender bags containing the dried flowers in drawers with linen and clothes to give them this fragrance.
Kate planted a dark blue clematis in the rear garden of their home at 10 Sandford Road, Hotwells, Bristol which both my mother and her sister, Phyllis, remember well. In fact my aunt Phyllis had a similar clematis planted in her rear garden long after in the late 1960s as a way of being nearer her spirit whom she adored. Most touchingly, according to aunt Phyllis, her selfless mother would often pretend to have eaten meals earlier she prepared when asked why she did not join them at the table so that her children could have sufficient as money was so scarce.
In 1923, primarily because her son was being disciplined over severely by her husband, she decided to leave him and take her family to live with her younger sister, Frances, (known in the family as Marion) who had been widowed almost immediately after her marriage but because of her husband's generous Canadian war pension was financially of easy means. This never occurred. On December 17, 1923, after spending an afternoon at her spinster aunt Kate's grocery shop in Saint Michael's Hill, (Bristol) she hurriedly left to catch a tram and in her haste to be home for her husband's dinner forgot to be watchful in the dusk and walked around the waiting tram into the road (Perry Road, opposite The Red Lodge) to mount and was knocked down by a passing Armstrong Siddeley car. She was taken to the Bristol Royal Infirmary Hospital in a coma. On December 19, wihout regaining consciousness, she very tragically died. She was just 44 years of age.
By all accounts, almost everyone liked and respected her excitable wit and humour and her spirited conscientiousness and kindness. She was buried on Christmas Eve, 1923. Her death adversely effected the young family because her income ceased and their care and education were thereafter largely unconsidered. Her coffin was interred in her husband's family vault.
During their marriage she continued to work at home as a skilled tailoress because her husband received low wages from his astute but otherwise mean and selfish father, and also liked to play the piano at which she was highly accomplished, having had lessons before her own father's death from the distinguished Bristol Cathedral organist, Sir George Riseley. My mother recalls her playing Chopin's Waltz in A minor Op. 32 No. 4.
In 1909 she finally gave birth to her first child, a daughter, Phyllis Kate, on December 31. It is likely she had previously sought medical advice and perhaps treatment since she had then been married 12 years. In 1912 she gave birth to a son, John. However, he very sadly died from croup aged only 2 years. On September 23, 1914 my mother, Frances Alice, was born. Finally, on January 8, 1917 she gave birth to a son, Kenneth Leslie.
She was never really very compatible with her husband because of his quick violent temper and lack of similar interests. She was talkative, highly strung and sociable and enjoyed any form of tasteful modest excitement such as fairgrounds and boat trips. At 5 feet in height with dark brown hair and dark brown eyes she sometimes cycled too with her younger, favourite brother, Frederick. Her favourite scent was natural lavender and she would place silk lavender bags containing the dried flowers in drawers with linen and clothes to give them this fragrance.
Kate planted a dark blue clematis in the rear garden of their home at 10 Sandford Road, Hotwells, Bristol which both my mother and her sister, Phyllis, remember well. In fact my aunt Phyllis had a similar clematis planted in her rear garden long after in the late 1960s as a way of being nearer her spirit whom she adored. Most touchingly, according to aunt Phyllis, her selfless mother would often pretend to have eaten meals earlier she prepared when asked why she did not join them at the table so that her children could have sufficient as money was so scarce.
In 1923, primarily because her son was being disciplined over severely by her husband, she decided to leave him and take her family to live with her younger sister, Frances, (known in the family as Marion) who had been widowed almost immediately after her marriage but because of her husband's generous Canadian war pension was financially of easy means. This never occurred. On December 17, 1923, after spending an afternoon at her spinster aunt Kate's grocery shop in Saint Michael's Hill, (Bristol) she hurriedly left to catch a tram and in her haste to be home for her husband's dinner forgot to be watchful in the dusk and walked around the waiting tram into the road (Perry Road, opposite The Red Lodge) to mount and was knocked down by a passing Armstrong Siddeley car. She was taken to the Bristol Royal Infirmary Hospital in a coma. On December 19, wihout regaining consciousness, she very tragically died. She was just 44 years of age.
By all accounts, almost everyone liked and respected her excitable wit and humour and her spirited conscientiousness and kindness. She was buried on Christmas Eve, 1923. Her death adversely effected the young family because her income ceased and their care and education were thereafter largely unconsidered. Her coffin was interred in her husband's family vault.
