Shep's Place Family Tree

Win's unnamed friend, who was 97 years old in 1985 when the letter was written, "knew Auntie Polly real well."

"It has no bearing on the Walker family but makes interesting reading, I think. It all began many years ago before my Grandma was married. She & her friend had left Yorkshire & become housemaid & cook to a family near Manchester. They became valued servants & were there till Grandma married ‎[in 1879]‎.

During their service their employer's niece came to stay on a pro-longed holiday. According to my stern & severe Gran, Harriet was a silly carefree girl leading a reckless life. She left her Uncle's home on occasion to visit friends in various parts of the country, and whilst on a train journey ‎(to Gran's horror)‎ got too familiar with a strange passenger & landed herself "in trouble'! Harriet confided this to the servants, wanting to keep her "trouble" from her Aunt & Uncle & enlisted Gran's help.

Gran hit on the idea of despatching the girl to her sister Polly, and accordingly prevailed on her employer that she should take her as the girl wasn't looking well & needed fresh country air! They agreed, and Harriet spent a fair time at Swallownest near Sheffield being cared for by Auntie Polly & Uncle John. In due course the babe arrived, Feb. 8th, with snow thick on the ground, but Auntie Polly bundled up the mite only a few hours old, and in horse & trap, journeyed many miles to place ‎[the]‎ child with a Baby Farmer. A kindly woman owning a small holding & caring for several homeless waifs. Harriet agreed to pay the necessary fee, and in due course returned to her Uncle's looking more like her old self, better in health & spirits with her "trouble" safely concealed, and shortly afterwards returned to her own home. Not forgetting her child though. She had discovered the village where her child had been taken.

Auntie Polly kept in touch with the "Minder" & visited on occasion until she died in 1902. Within a few days of Polly's demise Uncle John got out the horse & trap & journeyed there most likely with home comfort in mind as to quote the old gentleman's words, "he bought small holding woman and all"! True, he brought back the Baby Farmer, & the two children she was then caring for--a boy of 16 and Alma 15--cheap labour for his home & garden. He married the Baby Farmer within weeks. He & Polly had had no children, but the Baby Farmer gave him a son. Mother ‎[Agnes Muriel Saunders Bell]‎ met Alma for the first time when she & her mother ‎[Adeleve Walker Saunders]‎ were invited to see the new baby!

To revert to Harriet--she married & went to live in Australia! But never forgot her child somewhere on the border of Derbyshire & Yorkshire, and when Alma was 10, her mother came over, seeking her, but strangely enough not where Alma was living. She stayed at the Hydro & visited the village school Mon to Friday & unfortunately it was that rare occasion when Alma was kept home with a bad cold. When she returned to school the following Monday, the headmaster told her to run hard to the Hydro where a well dressed woman was staying, she had been enquiring for Alma every morning the previous week. Alma ran, but too late, the woman had booked out the previous Saturday & had left no forwarding address.

Years later they might have met but Harriet was not well on the voyage out here and soon afterwards died.

I was able to find out these details later for quite by chance walking around my cemetery on my usual routine walk, I spotted Harriet's name on a grave stone. She had been buried in a grave belonging to her uncle.

Little did Harriet or my grandparents ever imagine Alma would live to the great age of 97. Or that Alma's only surviving stepson & his family would be residing miles across the world at Sydney!

The son born to Uncle John & his second wife died mid 1984, aged 82. Still living on the same land Auntie Polly went to on her marriage!