After considering several possible sites, we finally decided to have a bungalow built on the land bought from Mr. Noakes. So after thirty three years as mine host and mine hostess at the Apple Tree Inn we said goodbye and moved into the ‘Pippins’ a couple of hundred yards away in September 1959. We now had a care free life. Cecil was getting less angina pain. The American Government were still paying us a monthly compensation for the loss of Richard. We could afford a gardener and I had my rose garden.
Ella’s Story : Retirement
July 29, 2007 at 6:00 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: Autobiography, Drew, Noakes
Ella’s Story : Post War Years
July 28, 2007 at 6:00 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: Autobiography
Jim safely came through the war years and stayed on in the RAF. But in February 22nd 1946 the Hudson aircraft, of which he was one of the three crew members, crashed north of Gemen in Westphalia, in Germany.
Ella’s Story : The Second World War
July 27, 2007 at 5:13 am (Genealogy)
Tags: Autobiography
Two months later in September 1939 the Second World War was declared. Food rationing came into force and I obtained a licence to sell most foods in the shop. A large number of the village folk were registered with me and the paper work had to be returned monthly to the Bath Food Office. Throughout the war years beer was rationed too and sometimes we sold out before the next allotment was due. When this happened we did not always close.
Ella’s Story : The Home Coming
July 26, 2007 at 5:56 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: Autobiography
Cecil had no permanent job and the ‘crash’ came in 1929. Life was uncertain so when we received a cable from Pa, asking us if we would like to come home and run the Apple Tree Inn at Shoscombe, we jumped at the chance. Within a week we were on our way.
Ella’s Story : Life in California
July 25, 2007 at 5:49 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: Autobiography
Uncle Bill had said ” You can put your feet under the table in Hawthorn” but he was not there and his wife Rachel was less than hospitable giving us a can of beans and figs from her garden! Little did we know how Aunt Rachel would accept us.
Ella’s Story : Across America
July 24, 2007 at 12:15 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: Autobiography, Travel
In 1928 Cecil caught whooping cough. The doctor advised we move to a warmer climate and this was the reason we planned the 2,766 mile journey from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles, California. When we set off in August I was two months pregnant with Richard and Jim was not yet six years old.
Ella’s Story : Emmigration
July 23, 2007 at 3:23 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: Autobiography, Emmigration
Our plans to sell up and emigrate to America had not been altogether straight forward. We had at first arranged to sail for the States in June 1924, but we were told we were over the quota and were given no indication at what future date we might leave. After several hectic trips to the American Embassy in Bristol we got a cancellation and so were able to finally embark on the RMS. Aquitania with our two-year-old son Jim on 6th November 1924.
Ella’s Story : The First World War
July 22, 2007 at 4:48 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: Autobiography
I remember clearly the day when the first world war was declared in 1914. Granny Hamilton and I were visiting Aunt Eleanor at Aberly in South Wales. She kept a public house there. Uncle Jack, her husband (one of father’s older brothers) had died a few years earlier at the age of 35. Our lives in the country went on much as usual during that war. Although there was food rationing we were not short of fresh vegetables or dairy products and there were always rabbits, hares or other game for meat. It was probably much different if you lived in a town. Miners and Farm workers were exempt from call-up for Military service, so not too many young men went off to war.
Ella’s Story : The Early Years
July 21, 2007 at 5:21 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: Autobiography
I first met Ella in February 1990 at her bungalow in Shoscombe. I had gone there to see if she was able to ‘put meat on the bones’ of my ancestors. In my notes that I kept of that first meeting I described her as “a very sprightly 90 year old lady, totally with it, displaying a sharp mind and good memory”. Over the years I visited Ella several times and saw her become frailer. Sadly the last time I saw here was at St.Martins Hospital in Bath on the 18th October 1997. I was there having arranged an interview with Paul Sigrist the Director of the Ellis Island Oral History Project. Using my daughters Fisher Price tape recorder he conducted an interview with her lasting well over an hour. In the article Paul Sigrist is quoted as saying “In the 24 year history of the project, it is unprecedented to find someone who came back to their native land”.
Paul Tompkins
