MY GRAND MOTHER NELLIE WAS HER NAME
NELLIE WAS HER NAME
My Grandmother was born in 1907 somewhere in England after only 6 years post Queen Victoria's death and was given the name of Nellie Isabella Watts. She was born in Croydon in the Southern part of England in Kent. She was born to two people with the last name of Watts. Her Dad died when she was only seven years old, he died from a football (soccer) game when a football hit him in the head and caused a fatal concussion. So she was raised by her mother only.
She went through two world wars in her lifetime. At one time she went to the hangers to help build airplanes. But the thing that I remember her talking about the most was walking home from work to her home through bombs being dropped on her beloved home country in World War II. I remember her saying that she had to duck into doorways and lobbies and at times stop at a pub "to get some Dutch courage" to get home.
She had my mother in 1930 so she was 23 or thereabouts when she did. She married a man that she said was approved by her family and had two children by him, my mother and my uncle. At one time they: my grandmother and grandfather when they were still married owned a restaurant and she said that restauranteering was a lot of hard work. And at another time she was a "tweeny" where she worked as a scullery maid in a prominent household of the prosperous type. Later on she worked for the War Office in London.
She was also my Godmother, which was a traditional thing to do when and where I was born to be given God-parents by your family as a tradition, and my grandmother was given to me. She became one of my best friends. I could always talk to her freely, we seemed to be of a like spirit, a kindred spirit of the heavenly/spiritual type and I missed her terribly when she first passed over to the other side. It gets easier as time goes by, but I still miss being able to sit down and have a "heart to heart" with her as I used to do.
She was divorced from her first husband, and so had to go to work and I remember that she worked all my growing up years and into my adult years even. She was a very independent individual with a strong constitution and a savvy edge to her personality that was compellingly and distinctive of character. She would say things like "if you do it on your own-their you are not obligated to anyone else". There are pros and cons to everything. If a job is worth doing, then its worth doing well." "Don't spoil the ship for a happen'th of tar". She must have been trained in the hard school of life. There wasn't much room for sloppiness there. Everything she did was perfect, I mean perfect. She
knitted with Utopian perfection, there wasn't a stitch missing in her crochet (she even crocheted with a perfect skill and had never learned to read a pattern) she crocheted just by looking at a picture of the object! She made all our sweaters when we growing up, for me and my sisters. Her knitting needles had counting ends on them so she could keep track of the number of rows she had done already. Her cooking was past amazing. I asked her once "how do you make chicken soup this good?!" She said its not hard, you strain off the bones and put the chicken back into the pot with all your nice vegetables and that is the main thing to know. I thought no wonder mine tastes terrible, I didn't know that you do that! She was a gardener par none, everything she planted came up as if they had been given instructions by a master gardener.
She was not of the bleeding heart type, she had a philosophy that it was not good to be too sentimental. Wow, they raised those kids in the 20s with hard apple cider I guess.
She was quite a guide, a special friend and a strong character for me to emulate. She was very loving, very considerate, very careful and quite an example of womanhood to me as I was growing up.
I used to walk her to the bus station as a young girl after she had spent the weekend with us, and I would say "Nannie, I don't want you to leave" - and she would answer "I cant come back again if I don't leave", and that's what I remember when I long to see her and talk to her today, that she will come back again one day when we meet on the other side and there we will continue the journey that we started when I first met my grandmother as child in the 1950s.
My Grandmother was born in 1907 somewhere in England after only 6 years post Queen Victoria's death and was given the name of Nellie Isabella Watts. She was born in Croydon in the Southern part of England in Kent. She was born to two people with the last name of Watts. Her Dad died when she was only seven years old, he died from a football (soccer) game when a football hit him in the head and caused a fatal concussion. So she was raised by her mother only.
She went through two world wars in her lifetime. At one time she went to the hangers to help build airplanes. But the thing that I remember her talking about the most was walking home from work to her home through bombs being dropped on her beloved home country in World War II. I remember her saying that she had to duck into doorways and lobbies and at times stop at a pub "to get some Dutch courage" to get home.
She had my mother in 1930 so she was 23 or thereabouts when she did. She married a man that she said was approved by her family and had two children by him, my mother and my uncle. At one time they: my grandmother and grandfather when they were still married owned a restaurant and she said that restauranteering was a lot of hard work. And at another time she was a "tweeny" where she worked as a scullery maid in a prominent household of the prosperous type. Later on she worked for the War Office in London.
She was also my Godmother, which was a traditional thing to do when and where I was born to be given God-parents by your family as a tradition, and my grandmother was given to me. She became one of my best friends. I could always talk to her freely, we seemed to be of a like spirit, a kindred spirit of the heavenly/spiritual type and I missed her terribly when she first passed over to the other side. It gets easier as time goes by, but I still miss being able to sit down and have a "heart to heart" with her as I used to do.
She was divorced from her first husband, and so had to go to work and I remember that she worked all my growing up years and into my adult years even. She was a very independent individual with a strong constitution and a savvy edge to her personality that was compellingly and distinctive of character. She would say things like "if you do it on your own-their you are not obligated to anyone else". There are pros and cons to everything. If a job is worth doing, then its worth doing well." "Don't spoil the ship for a happen'th of tar". She must have been trained in the hard school of life. There wasn't much room for sloppiness there. Everything she did was perfect, I mean perfect. She
knitted with Utopian perfection, there wasn't a stitch missing in her crochet (she even crocheted with a perfect skill and had never learned to read a pattern) she crocheted just by looking at a picture of the object! She made all our sweaters when we growing up, for me and my sisters. Her knitting needles had counting ends on them so she could keep track of the number of rows she had done already. Her cooking was past amazing. I asked her once "how do you make chicken soup this good?!" She said its not hard, you strain off the bones and put the chicken back into the pot with all your nice vegetables and that is the main thing to know. I thought no wonder mine tastes terrible, I didn't know that you do that! She was a gardener par none, everything she planted came up as if they had been given instructions by a master gardener.
She was not of the bleeding heart type, she had a philosophy that it was not good to be too sentimental. Wow, they raised those kids in the 20s with hard apple cider I guess.
She was quite a guide, a special friend and a strong character for me to emulate. She was very loving, very considerate, very careful and quite an example of womanhood to me as I was growing up.
I used to walk her to the bus station as a young girl after she had spent the weekend with us, and I would say "Nannie, I don't want you to leave" - and she would answer "I cant come back again if I don't leave", and that's what I remember when I long to see her and talk to her today, that she will come back again one day when we meet on the other side and there we will continue the journey that we started when I first met my grandmother as child in the 1950s.
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