As I explained in my previous blog, I have started looking at old postcards to see whether there is a story to be told and have set up a Facebook group. You always hope it will be a happy and uplifting tale rather than one of death and sadness ......... well, that's not totally true as it's good to find any sort of interesting story which may be hidden in the mist of time and which might not otherwise have been told.
The previous blog has moved on and I have found the main story the postcard was trying to tell. You may recall that we had discovered one of this couples twins had died in the first year of her life in 1861 and the other twin plus another child died in the same quarter in 1862. I thought there might be a story to be found so I invested in a few certificates so I could find out how tragic these few years were for the Annegarn family.
On 20th December 1861, one of the twins, 1 year old Eleanor Alice Annegarn, died having contracted measles. Not long after on 11th April 1862, 5 year old Florence Harriet Sophia Annegarn contracted scarlet fever and she died on 16th April. Her baby sister, Theresa Agnes Annegarn, whose twin had died a few months earlier, showed the first signs of having caught the same infection on the day Florence died and she herself died on 20th April. The family must have been devastated at these three tragic events which had hit them in such a short period of time.
What was scarlet fever ? In Victorian days it was an incurable infection which was a major cause of deaths, especially in children. The sufferer would have a severe sore throat, a fever and a scarlet rash. It was normally passed from person to person by coughing on them or in their near presence. Today we have antibiotics which almost always guarantees a complete recovery but in 1862 it was incurable.
Florence Ellen Thirza Annegarn, the recipient of the postcard in 1906 was born four years after these deaths and was possibly named in memory of her three dead sisters, with one name taken from each.
Another example of every postcard telling a story .... although this was a particularly sad one.
Read original : Every postcard tells a story
The previous blog has moved on and I have found the main story the postcard was trying to tell. You may recall that we had discovered one of this couples twins had died in the first year of her life in 1861 and the other twin plus another child died in the same quarter in 1862. I thought there might be a story to be found so I invested in a few certificates so I could find out how tragic these few years were for the Annegarn family.
On 20th December 1861, one of the twins, 1 year old Eleanor Alice Annegarn, died having contracted measles. Not long after on 11th April 1862, 5 year old Florence Harriet Sophia Annegarn contracted scarlet fever and she died on 16th April. Her baby sister, Theresa Agnes Annegarn, whose twin had died a few months earlier, showed the first signs of having caught the same infection on the day Florence died and she herself died on 20th April. The family must have been devastated at these three tragic events which had hit them in such a short period of time.
What was scarlet fever ? In Victorian days it was an incurable infection which was a major cause of deaths, especially in children. The sufferer would have a severe sore throat, a fever and a scarlet rash. It was normally passed from person to person by coughing on them or in their near presence. Today we have antibiotics which almost always guarantees a complete recovery but in 1862 it was incurable.
Florence Ellen Thirza Annegarn, the recipient of the postcard in 1906 was born four years after these deaths and was possibly named in memory of her three dead sisters, with one name taken from each.
Another example of every postcard telling a story .... although this was a particularly sad one.
Read original : Every postcard tells a story