Ancestry Magazine

Serendipity played a key role in the resolution of this award-winning writer’s search for her British family.

The e-mail didn’t look like anything special. It certainly didn’t look like the end of a thirty-year quest. The morning after Thanksgiving I sat down at my computer to clear out my Inbox and came to an e-mail with a subject line that read: Phyllis Bat es.

Thinking it was just some new person who was intrigued with the online story of my Grandma Lily’s long-missing sister, Edie, I took a sip of tea and pressed Enter. The e-mail began:

“My name is Keith, and I am Phyllis Bates’ son and Edie Colsell’s grandson. I have copies of the photographs you have on your website””

When I was a little girl, I looked forward to my occasional weekend at Grandma’s. I know that my love of good strong tea—fixed the British way—comes straight from those memories. Grandma’s house was small but filled with things I loved to look at. I spent hours trying to figure out how she had stitched yarn into canvas to create the nosegay of pansies on her footstool. I loved looking at her collection of English teacups, her rarely used pink sherry glasses, and an intriguing print of a young woman walking through an arch in what Grandma called the “old country.” Her pride for the England of her youth was unmistakable.

Outside there was always something edible. Oranges, strawberries, apricots, apples, and almonds proliferated as the seasons changed. Grandma was generous to a fault, cheerful, and strong-willed. On these visits, I received absolute adoration and her full attention. I loved it!

When I was about seven years old, I remember being perched on a branch up in the apricot tree sniffing the scents of springtime. I happened to catch a glimpse of Grandma through the living room window. She was sitting in her street window easy chair, reading something and shaking her head, looking sad. I wanted to know what was wrong, so I ran inside.

I asked her what she was reading and she said, “A letter from folks in the old country.” Then she folded the letter, wiped her eyes, and heaved a huge sigh. I asked her if she was sad. She told me that her folks in the old country were not as lucky as she was and she felt bad that she couldn’t help them. For the first time, I realized that there was another side of Grandma that I didn’t know. I wanted to know her better, but I knew from the look on her face that the conversation had ended.

I grew up, married, and had just learned that I was pregnant with my first child when I heard that Grandma was dying. She lived with my parents for several months until they were forced to put her into a care facility. A week before she died, I drove to the hospital and spent the afternoon with her.

I sat next to her bed. Through gritted teeth, Grandma told me that she didn’t understand why life was so hard on her. Her talk turned to the disappearance of her sister Edie. She said that one of her biggest regrets was that no one had ever learned what had happened to Edie and her daughter Phyllis.

With no idea of what I was committing myself to, I promised Grandma that I would try to find Edie and Phyllis.

Grandma died 2 June 1973 and my little girl, Annetta Lilyrose, was born mid-July. That baby girl is now a thirty-year-old woman. It has taken all this time to finally learn the full story of Edie.

Over the years I raised three more children and kept a job. I had no time to actively look for Edie. Every time I thought about it, I felt I had failed in my promise to my grandmother. I had no idea if Edie was dead or alive, and time was passing quickly. When the nineties brought the Internet and its worldwide audience, I saw a possible new way to find Edie. When I attended a work-related website workshop, I wondered if putting up a website showing what I knew of Edie’s story could bring Edie’s descendants to me. In 1998, my first genealogy website was born.

As with most endeavors, this became a “two steps forward, one step back” process. I took the time to go through boxes of accumulated family data, organizing it into binders. I discovered pictures of Edie and Phyllis, plus letters that provided chronological deta ils that helped me understand Grandma’s lifelong sadness. My webpage summarized this information and I hoped that a descendant of Edie’s might find it and contact me.

During my childhood, I had asked Grandma about her family any time I thought she would answer. Trying to get details regarding her younger years was tricky as Grandma didn’t want to talk about it; it made her too sad. Bit by bit, though, I learned that Grandma, who was christened Rose Lily, was born in a rural village, Chinnor, northwest of London.

Her mother, Martha, died from pleurisy in 1901 when Lily was just four years old. Lily and her older sister, Edie, were sent by their father George to live with their “mother’s people.” George, a thirty-three-year-old widower with young children to raise, surely felt overwhelmed. The local midwife sent her daughter, Emily, to help out so George could work. Within a year, Emily and George were married. But while Emily struggled to care for George’s two boys and her own babies, George spent more and more time frequenting the local pub.

By this time, Edie had taken a job as a maid in Thame, and Lily, now a seven-year-old, was pulled from school and brought back to Chinnor to an “ugly stepmother” situation where she was expected to care for her new step-siblings. Emily, determined to break George of his drinking and gambling habits, instructed Lily to collect daily pints of beer for George. Lily hated this chore. The smell was bad enough, but the taunting she got from local boys as she walked the bucket home was intolerable. By the age of twelve she was a blossoming young girl; the taunts turned to torture and some of the boys tried to manhandle her.

Edie married Albert Bates in 1912. He was caretaker for Whirlbush Farm, which was about three and a half miles from nearby Haddenham. But Edie didn’t forget about Lily or her plight. She wrote to her aunt for advice. Aunt Alice recommended that Lily pack her bags, g et on the train, and come to London—which she did. Once there, Alice got Lily a job working as a nurse’s aide. At age fourteen, Lily was supporting herself.

When an American patient at the hospital offered Lily a position “working pantry” in her home, Lily leapt at the chance to leave the hospital.

In 1914, unrest in Europe threatened war, but Lily’s employers nevertheless decided to leave on a continental tour of Europe. They invited Lily to accompany them, but the idea frightened her. They accepted her choice and introduced her to another American couple, Ben and Victoria Allen, who hired Lily as their nanny. Ben was the London correspondent for the Associated Press. Lily couldn’t have known it then, but this new job would change her life forever.

In June, the Allens headed to Woodland, California, on home leave and took Lily with them. Within a month, newspapers brought word that war had broken out in Europe and the Allens packed up to return to London. But Lily chose not to go back where war was sure to spread, and at age sixteen, she took a job at the Woodland Tuberculosis Sanatorium.

By 1915, the letters show that Grandma, albeit an irregular communicant, was keeping in touch with her brothers and sister in England. The news was not often good. Grandma’s brother Ted was killed in France in September 1915, and Edie wrote of a miscarriage. Then, good news. Edie gave birth to a daughter, Phyllis, in March 1916. Next came more news of loss. Grandma’s brother George had survived the war but died of meat poisoning contracted from his work in a butcher shop.

In time, Lily met Sidney James McPherson, another British immigrant, and they were married in 1917. Their first son was born in 1919. My father and a third son followed by 1922.

By 1925, Lily had not heard from Edie for two years. Finally, a letter came from Aunt Mary:

“I am sorry to send you such new s. Edie left Albert last October, taking Phyllis with her, and they have not been seen or heard from since. We put the matter in the hands of the police and I am sure they have done their best to trace her, but without success. Edie was very friendly with a young man from Haddenham living about two miles from the farm. He was missing at the same time so we think they have gone together with Phyllis.”

Believing there was little she could do from the United States, Grandma lived with this story until her death.

Armed with this collected information, I took advantage of anything I thought would aid my research. I visited the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, joined the local genealogical society, attended national conventions, and took seminars. When I learned about the RootsWeb geographic mailing lists, I joined one for Oxfordshire, England, and poured out my story. Almost immediately my efforts yielded astonishing results.

A woman on the list wrote the she lived near Whirlbush Farm and would go there to see if anyone knew of Albert Bates. Within a week, I received an e-mail from a woman named Lisa, identifying herself as the wife of the son of the original owners of Whirlbush Farm. They still lived on the farm! She was intrigued with my story and offered to take it to the Thame Gazette.

In October 1998, the story appeared on the front page of the Gazette and included a picture of Edie. A woman contacted Lisa and identified herself as Albert’s niece, saying she was trying to get a death certificate for Edie. She promised to call back if she was successful. The lady would not leave her number and another call never came.

Later, a man called who had gone to school with Phyllis. He remembered seeing her walk the long road to school and said kids felt sorry for her. He said his teacher told the class that Phyllis had been gored by a bull and died.

Intrigu ed by these new pieces of information, I telephoned a cousin who still lived near Chinnor to ask if he had ever heard stories about Edie. He said his grandfather told him to “be good or you’ll end up like Edie.” He never knew what that meant, but when he asked he was told that Edie had run off to America and married Doris Day’s uncle. Obviously, the story had grown to mythic proportions.

I decided to check out the story anyway. I contacted Doris Day’s agent who agreed to look into it. She told me that if there was anything to the rumor, she would call me back. No call ever came.

Between 1998 and 2003, I exhausted everything I could imagine to glean new information, but nothing worked. Meanwhile Edie’s story sat on my webpage until, in November 2003, I received the e-mail that changed everything.

The e-mail continued:
“My family knew nothing of Edie’s or our mother’s early life because it was never discussed at home, but we do know that our mum and Edie left Chinnor in 1926 with Will from Haddenham. We have his 1926 diary and copies of his job applications to a butcher in Liphook Hants where all three moved.

“When Will was seventy in 1971 and started to collect his pension, our mother Phyllis asked him why it was a single man’s only, and he then told her he had never married Edie our Nan and he was not Phyllis’s father.

“When our mother Phyllis died in 1999, myself and my wife cleared her flat and found lots of early photos, including yours, and Mum’s birth certificate with her name as Edith Mary Phyllis Bates. This is the first time any of us knew our Grandfather’s name.”

As facts were exchanged, I slowly and sadly absorbed that Edie had died just one year earlier than Grandma. It was true that Phyllis had been gored by a bull, though she hadn’t died; she told her five children the story, but refused to show them the scar. Phyllis died in 1999. I grieve d that I would never meet either of these women who had become so real to me. But as all the information sunk in, I looked forward to patching the true story together with my five newly discovered cousins.

Reflecting on the events of this search, I am struck with how it all came together. I did have to do the research. I had to learn the methodologies and get my data in order. But in the end, time, chance, and serendipity played at least as big a part in the final result. It was my cousin’s wife who had decided to put the name “Colsell” into the search engine that brought up my website. She said they had been meaning to do it since Phyllis’s death, but it was only a night with nothing else on the agenda that had made it happen.

E-mails that include pictures of both women have been exchanged with my overseas cousins, and I am now copying all the letters I have, which I will send to them. It turns out that I may know more about their Nan’s early life than they do.

I telephoned each of my new-found cousins at Christmas and was delighted to hear their voices. We see clear family resemblances in the pictures—an adult Phyllis looks like some younger pictures of Grandma. We have all laughed about “family ears” and cried that circumstances have prevented visits and exchanges over the years. My cousins have children and grandchildren the ages of my own children, and a reunion of the “Descendants of George” is in the works for 2005.

Jana McPherson Black is a researcher and lecturer specializing in the use of Internet strategies to complement traditional genealogical research methods. She is currently Associate State Coordinator for the California GenWeb Project.