Jonathon Wardman

Historical Family Photos: James and Doris Rose Grady

For the last few years, on and off, I have been researching my family history. It started just after my grandmother died when we found a letter from my mother’s cousin asking her if she could fill in any gaps in the research he had been doing. Enclosed was a print-out of the research he had completed up to that point. That was a great starting point, although I was later to discover that there were a number of errors in his work. So I set off doing research of my own with the help of my parents, my grandparent’s belongings, a whole load of historical records, lots of logic and a good dollop of head scratching.

One interesting thing which I turned up as part of my research was a set of photographs dating from the 1870s through to the mid 1930s. Facts and figures are all very well, but being able to put a face to a name really gives the information another dimension. While some of the photos are yet to be identified, some I am pretty certain about thanks in part to a load of help from my mother. Over a couple of posts I will post some of these images along with a little bit of information about the person pictured.

James Grady

James Grady is an interesting character. My great-great grandfather was born in Doncaster but moved around more than any other members of the family. His job is listed in the 1901 census in Sedgley, Staffordshire as “New Connection Evangelist” above which is written “preacher”. In 1911 in Ellesmere Port his job is listed as “Primitive Methodist Home Missionary”. The three photos were taken at different times in his life, but are clearly all James.

 Doris Rose Grady

Doris Rose Grady, later Browning, the daughter of James Grady, was born in 1900. My great grandmother is of the generation where those tracing their family tree can’t find any documentary evidence of their occupation in census records because in the latest available, 1911, they were still children. However given this generation is within the living memory of living generations there is often anecdotal evidence. The last photo above also shows what Doris was doing during World War II. The photo shows the women and young men working in a munitions factory and you can see some of the shells they were producing in the background. Drois is on the second row from the front, second from right. I am also lucky to have found, amongst the photographs, a postcard written by Doris to her father, James, while he was living away. While there’s no date it’s probably from around 1914. One interesting thing to note is the similarity between her handwriting and that of my own grandmother, her daughter.