Write it down!

[Phoenix]

I have just spent a happy evening, trying to discover the name of Richard Skillings sister. They had both emigrated to Canada, she had married someone and on his WW1 attestation papers she is just named as Mrs xxxxxxxof.

Item Display - Soldiers of the First World War - CEF - Library and Archives Canada


I can remember kind folks either on here or on GR before the mutiny sorting out her name for me, but could I remember?

Luckily, I DID remember that someone of the same name appeared on the war memorial:

West Lorne Cenotaph - West Lorne, Ontario, Canada


Even luckier, I found a marriage notice for this sister

But would you really have guessed that her name was


















Mary Schliehauf?

[Little Nell]

The war memorial thingy says SCHLEIHAUF not Schliehauf.

[Phoenix]

I might have guessed I'd spell the dratted thing wrong, even now! I've been pasting it into search engines but thought I'd be clever and type it here!
And it LOOKS like Richard spelt it incorrectly too.

Handwriting may be dodgy, but a typewriter on the blink is even worse.

[Little Nell]

Or perhaps it was wrong on the memorial!

[Phoenix]

Sadly, the other name on the memorial is Richard's nephew, Homer Gilbert Schleihauf. But plain old Mary Ann Skillings has become Marion Annette Schleihauf! At least she didn't have to change the laundry marks.

[Phoenix]

Just found her in the 1911 census. She came out in 1907, so at the age of 14.

[WendyP]

HI Phoenix

There is a public tree on Ancestry that has a photo of Mary Ann Skillings future In laws the 'Schleihauf's'


Not sure if you've seen it though

[Phoenix]

Ooh, thank you, Wendy!

I must get off to work now, but I'll check in the evening. This is such a sad family: mother died, children split up, Richard died in WW1, another brother had joined the army but died of cancer before WW1 without knowing where the rest of his family were, a third had his marriage break up during ww1, so HIS children were split up. I often wonder whether the cracks were already there, or if had the mother survived their lives would have been less fractured.