Edith Sophia Cranidge (née Griffin), my great-grandmother, is buried with her mother Eliza Griffin (née Barnett) at North Cemetery at Strouden Avenue in Bournemouth, plot L2 92.
Edith died on 8 September 1969 aged 87; she had been living at 36 Cherford Road, Bournemouth since July 1964, when her tenancy on 25 Curzon Road was relinquished. Edith suffered from dementia, and was cared for by Granny & Grandad in her final five years.
I was only 3 when Edith died and have no memory of her.
Edith was born on 5th July 1882 in Crowland, Lincolnshire. She had an older brother Arthur and a younger sister Margaret, known as Maggie/May.
Arthur, Edith & Maggie Griffin all attended Crowland Abbey church and were scholars and teachers at the Sunday School there.
In 1908 when she was 25 Edith married Joseph Margrave Cranidge, 27, a brewer, and the couple lived in Crowle, Lincolnshire.
My Grandad, Eric Arthur Cranidge, was born on 21 March 1912.
But just six years later Joseph died , he was only 37.
Edith was therefore widowed at just 35 and she never remarried. She left Crowle and joined her sister May and May’s husband Sidney in Dudley. Although her brother Arthur and his wife Ethel were also nearby in Rowley Regis and she may also have stayed with them, I am not sure.
But certainly the next move was to Bournemouth, where Grandad went to school. In the 1921 census Edith is living together with Eric at a boarding house at 21 Knyverton Road, Bournemouth, along with May & Sidney and their son George.
Of Eliza Sophia Griffin, my great-great grandmother, I know very little indeed. Eliza was born in Fordham, Cambridgeshire in 1859. She married George Crane Griffin on May 24th 1880 when she was 21 years old. George, an ironmonger, was 24. Eliza died aged 79 in 1938.
These then are the basic facts about Edith & Eliza I have been able to piece together from old family records and from building the family tree on Ancestry.
However it’s little more than a basic chronology, fragments of lives, of which I wish I knew more, and now of course it is too late because there is no-one left to ask, although I do check in with Auntie Linda, who has been able to help me, especially with old photographs. But I do so wish Dad was around so I could ask him about his granny Edith and his auntie May, and so many others.
Of course I realize I am a textbook example of turning to family history to try and find comfort following loss. I started this journey after losing Dad and with Mum now also gone it feels even more emotionally charged.
But more practically it is also about a simple desire to connect with my past and try to make sense of this cache of old records and photos that I have inherited. I am now the custodian of all this family history and I want to do the job justice.
I may not know much about Edith & Eliza and their life stories but there is one thing I could do for them, I could pay them a visit and say hello. So in January this year I did just that.
I had the details of the grave location but North Cemetery is sprawling with many areas and I needed help from the cemetery office. In the end I was sure I had found the spot but there was nothing. I went back to the office and they confirmed I had I the right place, the grave was unmarked, no headstone, nothing.
I was a bit shocked at first, but Granny & Grandad never had much money and I expect they could not afford to purchase a memorial headstone; maybe they reassured themselves that they would when they could. And so it was that in 1969 Grandad paid £2 simply to turf the grave following internment.
I have two items to remember Edith & Eliza by. The first is a Nuttall’s Bijou Dictionary, inscribed with “E. S Cranidge” on the inner leaf. These pocket-sized reference books were all the rage in the 19th century, something for Edith to slip into her purse or handbag; after all you never know when you might need to look up a word.
And for Eliza I have her copy book, on the inner front cover she has written “Lilly Barnett January 1871”, so Eliza will have been a schoolgirl aged 12.
The copy book was the showpiece of a child’s learning in Victorian times, where good handwriting was considered all important. At the top of each page was printed a wise saying like “learning ennobles the mind” or “generous men are much esteemed” to be copied on each line to the bottom of the page, the aim being to improve both the mind and the handwriting of the child.
An ink pen will have been used by Eliza requiring extreme care and attention otherwise she might have blotted her copy book. I have always liked that phrase and now, with my great-great grandmother’s actual copy book in my hand, I finally understood its meaning. Eliza did a great job, there are no blots to be seen.
