Just got quite emotional ? Only son killed

[Guest]

I have been upating my tree and one couple had 11 Girls and one Boy Albert who got killed in 1916 in France, found myself crying when I read on the CWGC site only son of ???? how sad.
Why does it upset us so years later ??? and yet some scum bags desecrate the Graves ?

[Fi & Lilly]

I was devastated to learn that 2 Great uncles (brothers - surname Smith) got killed within a week of each other in WW1 but I still managed to find them, their death and birth certs.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Val

We had an elderly neighbour when I was a child, a bad-tempered witch of a woman. I was scared stiff of her but my mum was always very kind and gentle with her, as were all the other neighbours.

Years later mum told me the neighbour had had five sons and a daughter. Two were killed in WW1 and the other 3 in WW2. Her husband died of a heart attack when the final telegram came.

Her only daughter married and died in childbirth during WW2.

It still brings tears to my eyes when I think of it.

OC

[Christine in Herts]

OC - That just doesn't bear thinking about. It must be hard enough to cope with one of your children dying before you.... it's just the wrong way round... but the whole family!

I do recall seeing a mother who could only be described as "prostrate with grief" at the funeral of both her children who'd been killed in a car accident: a drunken speeder had pushed the car they were travelling in off the road and into a tree. (They were conforming to the 30mph speed-limit and the other guy didn't think it was fast enough: there wasn't room for his overtaking when he found himself facing a car coming the other way. Apparently he did much the same a few weeks or months later, but was killed himself.) The church was a big one and filled to the brim with secondary school students - and it was almost completely silent before the start of the service: that was awesome.

Christine

[Guest]

how sad poor families, do wonder why these things happen ??its funny how it affects us years later isnt it ???

[LorraineJ]

I found that one of my great uncle's died in WW1 and his remains are abroad. My great grandmother lost two more sons when one took himself off to Canada and another to Australia.

It must be awful to have your children taken from you in a terrible accident or an illness. One of my husband's great aunts died when she was two, not far from where I am now, but I haven't yet been able to find out why she died, but her siblings all lived to adulthood. My Mum's name sake died when she was young of lockjaw. How horrible, feeling utterly powerless.

[Ian H]

I found 6 brothers (my Grt Grt Uncles)and a son in law on one side of my family in ww1. 3 brothers and the son in law were killed two brothers on the same day one was in France the other Salonika.
On another branch I have a postcard my Grt Granddad sent back to his parents saying how well his younger brother George was doing and two days after the date of the postcard he was dead.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Nothing to do with war, but I remember feeling like I had been hit by a train when I read this in a parish register - the sister of my direct ancestor.

Buried by night...Jane Green singlewoman of Gawsworth. Found dead in a field, of childbirth. Unshriven.

The next entry read

Bastard stillborn infant of Jane Green singlewoman of Gawsworth.

Jane was just 19 years old and had been jilted at the altar three months before, in 1753.

I staggered home and wept and wept. It bothered me for ages, and you may think this is completely daft, but I cut some flowers from the garden and dropped them into the river near where I live and said "These are for you and your baby, Jane".

No idea why I got so upset about something which happened over 250 years ago!

OC

[Guest]

thats so sweet OC and the sort of thing I would do too.
very sad Ian makes you wonder how they survived

[dicole]

Most of my families were touched by deaths during WW1. One of the saddest was the youngest son who turned 18 and enlisted in Oct 1918 - he died of meningitis at training camp a few days after Armistice.

At least two of his brothers served, one being KIA in France in 1916, the other survived to serve through WW2.

Another Only child - one of our Coles' died on a training flight out of Townsville Queensland - his mother never recovered from her loss, the family say. It makes me sad to think of it and I wish I could go to lay flowers on his grave

[tanyal]

A short while ago, I checked the National Burial Index trying to find out what happened to one branch of the family, who just disappeared in the records (no signs of marriages or children). I'm pretty sure I found the burials of mother and all but one of her children (all of who died young) within a ten year span. And I haven't found any trace of the last child so I'm afraid she might died young too.

I can't believe how choked up I am about that. There's a few deaths in infancy in other branches of the family but I've never seen one in which the entire branch of the family was just wiped out.

[Little Nell]

I think we are naturally upset by tragedies. I read a book about 1st world war which described one woman who lost all 6 of her sons in the war.

Just thankful no one in my family was killed, though I had a gt uncle who was a prisoner of war.

Got very choked when I found 8 children, siblings and cousins, who'd died over a period of 2 months. They weren't even in my family!

[kylejustin]

my great grandfathers cousin is the only one we lost in war.
im so sorry to hear about oc's neighbour. so heartbreaking.

my 2nd great grandma lost her son harry in 1895. he wasnt even one.
in 1905, she lost her youngest daughter lily, age 6.
then she adopted two children, and in 1926, her husband died.
a few years later, my great grandmother died in childbirth. she had scrubbed the steps and windows of her yorkshire home in the snow blizzard, 9 mths pregnant with pop.
she caught pneumonia, and the strain of childbirth exhausted her. apparently she died on a sunday, and the doctor refused to see her.
my pop then went to live with her mother, who was dyeing of cancer.
this woman seems to have been so lovely, her smile is so warm in photo's.
it breaks my heart to think of the things that happened to her family.
most of those deaths were just accidental, and she could have been spared much pain.