Random Thoughts and Ideas from Austin

November 21, 2008

A great story from one of our members

A just wanted to share this touching story from one of our members.

Dear friends at ScrapbookFlair,

Firstly, I would like to thank you all for creating ScrapbookFlair. It has made such a difference to my life! Not only by making it possible for me to fill many hours with a pleasurable pastime, but, thanks to you, I now have some wonderful news, which I want to share with you.

I shall try to keep this as brief as I can.

I am Sylvia, AKA Broody Hen. On October 24th, 25th, 26th and 28th, I posted some pages showing old black and white photographs of my late mother's family, which were found among my late grandmothers 'treasures'.

My mother's mother left England in 1914 to live in South Africa. That same year she married in South Africa. The man she married was part of a very large family which had left England some years earlier, and had settled there. In 1929 her husband died, and she returned to England with her two daughters, aged seven and fourteen years.They remained here, where my grandmother remarried.

Over the years the family here in England gradually lost touch with the family in South Africa. My grandmother had told me some tales of their life in Durban, but my mother told me very little. It seemed she was not prepared to 'share' her memories with anyone. My mother's late father's brother, my great uncle, visited England in 1955, when I was nine years old, and I found photo's of my sister and myself taken with him at that time. He returned to South Africa on the ship called the Queen Mary, which is also on some of my photographs.

When my mother died, two years ago, I was asked if there was anything I wanted from the family home. I asked for any old photographs which the family may have left. I asked just in time, as my sister and her husband were not interested in old photo's and they were bound for the local rubbish dump!

I have spent many hours, with the help of my husband, going through these old images, from both my mother's family and my father's family, which go back to my great grandparents on both sides. I decided to make some scrap pages using some of my mother's 'lost' family, from South Africa. One of my SBF friends, June, AKA Ferro, enquired about the family name, as she has a friend in Durban. Within a short time she emailed me with nine addresses in Durban, where people with this name were living. I think these had been found in the Durban telephone directory. Incidentally, it is not a common name, and I couldn't find it on the internet.

Well, June suggested that I write a letter and enclose some copies of some family photo's, with as many names as I could find relating to family members, and send it to the addresses. I did this, sending one to each of the nine addresses. I now have many emails from a very excited family in South Africa. It seems that they have spent many years looking for anyone over here who was part of their family, who could fill in missing bits of their history too! They are deffinately my missing family!

So, dear friends at SBF, I have to say a huge THANKYOU to you all. You cannot imagine how much pleasure you have brought to our family. We have been reunited across the miles, and none of this would have been possible without SBF.

Again, many thanks, and my very best wishes to you all, Sylvia.

posted by Rae Ann @ Nov 21, 2008 | 0 comments | |