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Anne Rawlings tells the story of her great grandmother Anna Gilham from Kent.
My maternal great-grandmother, Anna Maria Gilham was born one of twin girls in October 1856. At the age of eighteen months, she suddenly lost the use of her legs and was diagnosed as having infantile paralysis.
Her sister, Polly, was unaffected. She lived most of her life in Kent, namely Folkestone, Faversham, Hythe and Dymchurch.
In spite of great-grandmother being confined to a wheelchair all her life, she was to married three times and travelled abroad. Her first marriage was to a man with the surname of Cook by whom she had a daughter, Annie, who later in life lived in India.
Her second marriage was to my great-grandfather, Mr. Carter. My grandmother, Mildred Mary, was born in a workhouse in Leeds but why the family were in that town I do not know.
By 13th August 1904, my great-grandmother was married to her third husband Jack (presumably John) Harding. I know this because I have a postcard stamped with the date and addressed to her as Mrs J. Harding at the 2nd Royal Sussex Regiment married quarters in Verdala, Malta.
Grandmother talked about her time in Malta and at the time the card was written, she would have been 14 years old.
My grandmother married a man from the north east of England in 1912 and eventually went with him when he returned to his hometown of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. It was not long before great-grandmother left the almshouse in Hythe, where she had been living, to follow her daughter north. She travelled, in her wheelchair, in the guard's van of the train.
Great-grandmother died on New Year's Day 1940 and had been, in spite of her disability, a very domineering woman. My mother remembers her being a 'prim and proper' lady.
Knowing the stigma of divorce in those days, I can only presume that her first two husbands died. Poor Jack Harding seems to have been pushed too far as he left great-grandmother before her move north. However, my grandmother always said that because he had been kinder to her than her natural father, she would always give him a home if he was in need. Unfortunately, she never heard from him again.
In all, great-grandmother had four children, including twin girls (Beatrice and Victoria) who died as babies. I do not know from which marriage the twins came. Who knows what I will unearth once I begin digging around my family about grandma's childhood!
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