Some Detective Work

Recently a cousin got hold of the photo album which had belonged to our McClellan Great Grandparents. She set to work scanning the photographs which turned out to be a real treasure trove.

There has been a lot of detective work done and close comparisons of the photos to find people who appear in more than one photo, of which there are many, but some were complete mysteries

 

One such mystery was this wedding photo

 

Between the two of us and our parents we couldnt identify anyone in the photo at all.  We named it the Mystery Wedding photo and it intrigued us.

As part of the research Ive been doing in regards to the McClellan/Brodie/Lennie family, I made contact with another couple of new to me relatives, and on a totally unrelated note I asked one if he knew who it was who my G Grandfather lived with after his wife died.

We knew it was a relative and we thought perhaps a cousin and the name bandied about was Jean Lennie, but I couldnt find a Jean Lennie anywhere in my tree who fit. It was suggested that perhaps it was Lucretia Jeanette Lennie and maybe she went by the name Jean which is certainly less of a mouthful.

 

Lucretia has a bit of a sad story and I need to fill you in on that to explain further.Her father was David Lennie , ( 1865-1949) . He was the eldest son of John and Elizabeth Lennie ( who became a McClellan on remarrying after Johns death)

David married Lucretia Peake

April 1887 Marriage LENNIE - PEAKE - On April 27th, at St. Mary's Church, by the Ven,. Archdeacon Harper, David Lennie, of Pleasant Point, to Lucretia, only daughter of Samuel Peake, Timaru (Timaru Herald )

Lucretia and David had 5 children. Lucretia Jeanette was the eldest, then followed Francis David, Eric Cecil ( who died aged 7) Samuel Joh ( who died aged 5 months

LENNIE. At Wellington, on July 13th, 1898, Samuel John, the beloved son of David and Lucretia Lennie, aged 5 months. Deeply regretted.

And finally Lucretia died from complications of childbirth giving birth to the last unnamed child with whom she is buried. It appears that Francis, aged less than 12 at the time, ran away from home, perhaps stowed away on a ship because next he his heard of he is in Tasmania .David left his daughter in the care of her maternal Grandparents, Samuel and Lucretia Peake, and followed Francis to Australia, remarrying there in 1903

 

So back to my detective work, when I realised that there might be even more of a connection with Lucretia Jeanette, I wondered if this in fact could be her wedding photo, after all there appears to be only one set of parents, the other set much older and possibly grandparent age. I learned her wedding was in 1913 which fit the fashions in the photographs quite well.

A theory developed in my head that perhaps this was her wedding and so I did a bit of googling of the name of her husband Charles Stanley Hawkey, and with some research I found his father Tom Hawkey had in fact been Mayor of Timaru in 1913 .

Today I emailed the Timaru Council asking if they could perhaps identify Tom Hawkey from my wedding photo and the passed the request on to the South Canterbury Museum.

I was elated to find that indeed this was Tom Hawkey – who appears as Father of the Groom in our mystery wedding photo

 

So the mystery wedding is no more a mystery. The Old couple on the left must be Samuel and Lucretia Peake, I suspect the best man is a brother of Charles, and the woman to his right , his mother Priscilla Hawkey

We may never know the identity of the bridesmaid however this doesnt deter me from continuing to pore over these photos until  more of our mysteries are solved

The Wedding

 

I did this quick arty style layout using a gorgeous wedding photo that I’ve had for years.

The photo ( hand coloured ) is of my Great Grand Aunt who i knew of all my life as Aunty Ede. She was a Salvation Army member as were many of the Grant /Abbott families she is descended from.

I know very little about the wedding except that the flower girl on the far left is my Grandmother, and the one on the far right with the gorgeous red hair is my grandmothers sister Mollie.  The girl in the middle is Pauline Grant who was the daughter of Ediths brother James ( Jim) Grant .

Edith Emily Marion Grant was the youngest daughter of William Grant and Louisa Mary Abbott, and one of 7 Grant children.  She would not have known her father very well at all as he died in 1906 when she was less than 7 years old .

My Great Great Grandmother Annie Elizabeth Grant was Edith’s eldest sister, there being 22 years between them in age .

Edith married John Alexander Montgomery ( known as Jack) on September 26 1923, but sadly Jack died in an accident in 1933 aged only 35.

They had only one daughter – Wendy, who Edith bought up as a single mother.
Edith lived till the age of 85, dying in 1984.

Gertrude Goodwin

I dont know much about Gertrude Goodwin yet, but this photo is so pretty I just had to use it in a layout.
What I do know about Gertrude is that she was the fourth child, and eldest daughter of James and Mary Ann ( Nee Gleeson) Goodwin and was born in 1885 . She was the sister of my Great Grandfather Phillip. 
Gertrude married Robert Job Maisey jr , son of a farmer ,who in 1917 was a labourer and later became a farmer in Morrinsville –
Gertrude and Robert had 2 children, Mervyn Claude, born 1910 and Ivy Beatrice born 1912 who at the time of writing is still alive.