Strong Woman

This week’s prompt for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is ‘Strong Woman’.

I believe there are many strong women in my family, but I only know the story of a few of them. This week I will write about my great-grandmother, Sarah Elizabeth Wiseman.

Sarah was born February 7^th, 1861 in Hinxton, a sub-district of Duxford, in the county of Cambridge, England. Her parents were William Wiseman and Jane Halstead. Sarah was the youngest of four children and the only girl. Sarah was lucky to receive an education at a Suffolk boarding school, for this was a luxury at that time. According to British History Online, Hinxton was a small village located between Cambridge and Saffron Walden. It was known as having good arable land for agriculture. In the 19^th century Hinxton was also known as good sporting county; having one of the best partridge manors in the eastern counties.

Sarah met William Goodchild and they married April 30^th, 1879 in the Parish Church of Withersfield, Suffolk, England. William was born February 9^th, 1857 in Hundon, Suffolk to Thomas Henry Goodchild and Sarah Harriett Savage. William was the eldest of six children. According to Wikipedia, Hundon was a village located between Clare and Haverhill. It, too, was an agricultural community.

Sarah and William had nine children: John Thomas Henry, George Frederick, Mabel Jane, Margaret Dudley, Katy, Grace Elizabeth, Stanley Walter, Ernest James and Gladys Maud. Three of these children died as infants; John Thomas Henry, Katy and Gladys Maud.

Early in Sarah and William’s married life they lived in Withersfield, Suffolk. Withersfield was a small village surrounded by farmland and the predominant occupation of its residents had been in the agriculture industry. According to Wikipedia, the name Withersfield translates from Old English to ‘Wether open land’ which means an area where rams roam.  According to the 1881 Census of England William and his wife, Sarah, were living at Hanchet Hall. William was a farmer of 175 acres and employed three farm boys. William also had two live in servants: George Decks was a 29-year-old indoor farm servant and his wife Julia was a 27-year-old domestic. They lived at Hanchet Hall with their five-year-old son, Harry. Sarah’s widowed mother lived nearby at Hanchet End.

According to the 1891 Census of England, William and his family were living at 6 Station Road, Wood Green, Tottenham, Middlesex. Recorded in the house with him were Sarah, his 30-year-old wife, George, his 9-year-old son, Maggie, his 5-year-old daughter, Gracy, his 2-year-old daughter, and Jane Wiseman, his 70-year-old widowed mother-in-law. William was working as a pork butcher. William and Sarah’s 7-year-old daughter, Mabel, was listed as staying at her paternal grandmother’s in Hundon, Suffolk. Wood Green was a growing urban district with a population about 23,000 by the time William and his family moved there. According to Hidden London, Wood Green, by 1891,  had a pleasure ground opened in Alexandra Park (180 acres of parkland that had a swimming pool, athletics ground, horse-racing track and dancing and banqueting facilities), an entertainment palace (an exhibition hall with an emphasis on cultural and educational facilities) and Noel Park (a 100 acres of former farmland replaced by an estate with turret-like gables surmounting many corner houses and some of them seemed to have been designed to resemble dovecotes in honour of the farm they replaced).

William passed away October 17^th, 1895 in Yoxford, Suffolk from influenza and exhaustion. He was 38 years old and left Sarah a widow at the age of 34. They had only been married 16 ½ years. Sarah was five months pregnant at the time and she had six children ranging in age from 18 months to 13 years to take care of. Yoxford was a small village located in the east of Suffolk and was surrounded on all sides by beautiful parklands. The name means a ford where oxen can pass and is derived by the River Yox, which runs nearby.

I believe, after William’s death, Sarah moved back to Hundon with her children to be close to family support. During the short 16 years of their marriage they appear to have moved around. Whether this was to improve their financial situation or because of a lack of finances, I do not know. There have been unsubstantiated comments that William lost their fortune.

The records found in the England Census are the only documentation I have of where this family lived prior to William’s death and this was for only the years 1881 and 1891. I have records indicating where the birth of their children were registered, but I do not know if they were living there at the time or only visiting.  The children were born as follows:

• John Thomas Henry Goodchild was born July 5, 1880 in Hundon, Suffolk and died March 15, 1881 in Hundon. This is where William was born and raised so the newlyweds could have lived there for a short time or they were visiting.
• George Frederick Goodchild was born April 5, 1882 in Withersfield, Suffolk. This is consistent with the 1881 census record.
• Mabel Jane Goodchild was born December 5, 1883 in Withersfield, Suffolk. This, too, is consistent with the 1881 census record.
• Margaret Dudley Goodchild was born October 11, 1885 in Ipswich, Suffolk. I am unsure if they were living here at the time.
• Katy Goodchild was born 28 December 1887 and died January 28, 1888 at the age of one month. I am not sure where she was born or died as I have not found a record.
• Grace Elizabeth Goodchild was born February 20, 1889 in Colney Hatch, Middlesex. I am unsure if they were living here at the time. They were living in Tottenham by 1891 and that is only about six miles away.
• Stanley Walter Goodchild was born March 24, 1891 in Hundon, Suffolk. Again, this is where William was born and raised and I do not know if they were living there at the time or only visiting. The 1891 census records them living in Tottenham and the enumeration for the census was to occur April 1^st.
• Ernest James Goodchild was born April 11, 1894 in Ipswich, Suffolk. I am unsure if they were living here at the time.
• Gladys Maud Goodchild was born February 26 1896 in Hundon, Suffolk and died May 28, 1896 in Hundon at the age of three months.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to the 1901 Census of England, Sarah and her family were living on Clare Road, Hundon, Suffolk in a home with four rooms. Recorded in the house with her are George, her 17-old son, Mabel, her 17-year-old daughter, Grace, her 12-year-old daughter, Stanley, her 9-year-old son and Ernest, her 6-year-old son. Sarah is not recorded as working or living on her own account. George is recorded as working as a shephard and Mable is listed as a teacher.

According to the 1911 Census of England, Sarah and her family were still living on Clare Road, Hundon, Suffolk. Recorded in the house with her are Stanley, her 19-year-old son and Ernest, her 16-year-old son. Sarah is listed as living on her own account and Stanley and Ernest are recorded as working at a shop.

Sarah moved to Shafton, Yorkshire in 1915 with her son, Ernest. She lived there until she died January 23^rd, 1958, a couple of weeks short of her 97^th birthday.

Sarah had many heartaches; the death of three of her children, as infants, and the death of her husband. I would assume the fact she was widowed at a young age with a young family and pregnant with her last child would have been a difficult struggle. If William did lose their fortune, it would have caused more hardship for Sarah.

I do know my grandfather, Sarah’s oldest child, George Frederick, immigrated to Canada from England in 1905 at the age of 23. At the time the West was opened and Canada was advertised as a ‘land of plenty’. My grandfather was expected to take advantage of the riches promised in Canada and send money back to his mother to help her financially.  This did not happen. George arrived in Canada and lived in the Boissevain, Manitoba area for a few years before moving to the Oxbow area of Saskatchewan in 1910. He met my grandmother, Leila Ida Moore, and they were married January 30^th, 1917 in Oxbow. They had nine children over a 16-year span. Eight of these children survived and became adults. George farmed in the Saskatchewan area for most of his working life, but he never owned a farm. George rented the various farms they lived on. When the last farm they rented, the Sair farm, was no longer available for rent he stopped farming and decided to board with some farm neighbours.  Ida moved into the town of Oxbow to work. After a few year Ida saved enough money to buy a 2-storey house on Prospect Avenue and George moved into the house to live with Ida again. George never had a surplus of money to send home to his family. He worked hard as a farmer but only made enough to sustain his own family. According to a newspaper article about Sarah, George’s mother, turning 90, Sarah told the reporter she was happy, although she often wished she could see her eldest son, 69-year-old Mr George Goodchild, who went to Canada 44 years ago, “but,” she laughs “I’m afraid of all that water.”

My mother was able to meet her grandmother, Sarah, in 1954. My mother, at age 28, had worked and saved money to go on a six-month trip to Europe. While she was there she visited her father’s family and met her aunts, uncle and grandmother for the first time. Sarah was living in the home of her son, Ernest, and his wife in Shafton, Yorkshire. My mother’s recollections of Sarah are that she was a very quiet, petite woman. She noted that even in 1954 Sarah cooked over an open fire hearth in her kitchen. She remembers her grandmother hanging a kettle or pot from an iron hook that she would swing back over the fire to heat the contents. My mother remembers Uncle Ernest telling a story about when his mother, Sarah, was hit by a car and knocked over. Ernest said when he heard about it and went to check on his mother he mentioned how she got hit by a car and she replied, ‘I did not get hit by a car, I hit the car’. I surmise from this story that my great-grandmother, Sarah, was also a bit feisty and maybe stubborn, as well.

I don’t know all the heartache and struggles Sarah encountered, but I believe it was her strength and fortitude that helped her through the hard times.