(Added 01.02.2017): So here we see Ruth Garner.Archer (my wife Ruth)’s mother, Audrey Nancy Parnell Philpotts.Garner (at the bottom), her parents, Minnie Johnson and Arthur Davis Philpotts (who died 10 years and 6 months, respectively, into her life, leaving her an orphan, aged 10 in 1930, to be brought-up by her Wilkinson family connections, Uncle Jack Wilkinson and his wife Aunty Maggie Wilkinson, who lived in Whitefield, Manchester. Hence my entire connection with that northern suburb of the great metropolis. Uncle Jack had a butcher’s shop down the hill from his home at No.1 Myrtle Grove, Whitfield, in Radcliffe, the famous mill-town, with, in its railway hey-day, about 8 (yes eight) stations serving the town centre and its suburbs. How many of these were still in full use post-war (1945 onwards) I don’t know - perhaps most of them for at least a few years, until, finally, the chop came with the Beeching Report in the early 1960s.
So, Nancy was brought-up, from the age of 10 in 1930, until she married in 1942, by Jack and Maggie Wilkinson, at 1 Myrtle Grove, and she moved back to Myrtle Grove in about 1950 when she and her husband Sam Garner, plus their daughter Ruth, and son Andrew, bought No. 8 Myrtle Grove, perhaps so as to be close-to and easily able to keep an eye on Uncle Jack, who by then was a widower. He and Aunty Maggie were a generation older than at least Nancy’s mother, Minnie Johnson.Philpotts. I will check the relationship between Uncle Jack Wilkinson (‘Grandpa Wilkinson’ to Ruth), and Ellen Wilkinson who was Minnie Johnson’s mother, and will do another family tree to show a little more of the family structure. (Added later on 1.2.17): Ellen was his elder half-sister i.e. he was a member of the second family, and Ellen was a member of the first.
Hence, from the above, Nancy Philpotts.Garner, was fatherless at 6 months, orphaned and ‘adopted’ by relatively elderly relatives at 10 years, married at 22 (which was a blessed relief from life at home, she told me), and widowed a mere three years beyond her silver-wedding at age 50, and is now (01.02.2017) aged 96, and has been a widow 46 years - a full 18 years longer than she was married.. What tribulations to bear! The tiny terraced houses in Nipper Lane, Whitfield, were a very minor asset bequeathed to Nancy by her adoptive parents.
Uncle Jack and Auntie Maggie’s own family comprised their son Frank, who died of Parkinson’s disease before, I believe, I met Ruth. Frank’s widow, Madge, lived in Devon, and Ruth and I visited her on the way back (on the Vespa scooter?) from our Sidmouth holiday. They had 3 sons: Adrian, David and Roger(?). Adrian and his wife Beryl lived in the West Midlands (Streetley?) when Ruth and I lived in Walmley, Sutton Coldfield (1968 - 1984), and came to tea with us a few times there, with their children (quite a few years older than Graham and Helen, born 1968 and 1973), of whom their daughter (name sadly now forgotten) was a strikingly good-looking young teenager. I believe their lives were tinged with sadness - details now forgotten. We have, I’m sorry to say, completely lost touch, many years ago.
Summary: Nancy Philpotts.Garner’s adoptive (at age 10) father was Jack Wilkinson, butcher, who lived in Whitfield. He and his wife Maggie brought her up without much love (or cuddling) which had its effects later, but to be careful, prudent, and with the traditions and values inherent in the owner of butcher’s shop.
(Added 12.3.17): This tree also shows the ‘Wilkinson’ connection in our family: ANPG (Ruth’s mum)’s maternal grandmother (the mother of Minnie Johnson) was Ellen Wilkinson (who married Martin Johnson), the daughter of Jonathan Wilkinson and Bridget McKay, born 1836 in Ireland, and who may well have come to Lancashire as a child in the 1840s during the potato-famine. More about these people when I get back to Ruth's Ancestry search results. Basically though, the main source of income at those times was small-scale farming and agricultural work - which was not at all well-paid of course.
Jonathan Wilkinson was ANPG’s maternal great-grandfather. My mother’s great-grandfather was William Wells (the chrysanthemum-grower)’s father, whom I must look-up.