Gallery Samples Stories of our Ancestors | Page 26

have been three years before she died. Walter does not appear in the wedding photo and a
relative takes his place.
Can this really be the musician, singer and fashion
fundi? We are challenged into altering our frames of
reference. I have no idea how old the couple were when
the photo was taken but as Sarah Jane was only 51
when she died she never grew to Old Age as we know it.
Perhaps she was already very ill when this photo was
taken and perhaps it was a ‘memorial’ photo for her
family? By holding up her prayer book or bible she is
telling us she is a very ‘religious’ woman. Does she want
God to see this? Or, perhaps she is expressing her
approaching death and her distress over having to leave
her young family? Ida and Jack were married in the
Wesleyan church so we can presume that that was the
religion of Ida’s family. Can one assume that any sort of
lightness of being was frowned upon in the family she
and George had created? Or was this the teaching of
their church?
Let’s describe Sarah Jane’s daughter Ida then, who
married Jack Anderson in 1907 and became the Mother
of Ruby, Gordon, Thalma, Lorentz, Douglas, Vera,
Vincent, Milton and Stella Marie. Some of my cousins
will remember Granny Ida in her old age but of course
by then she hardly resembled the lovely and
accomplished young girl she had been.

I D A ’ S F A T H E R G E O R G E J O B W A TE R S
A N D M O T HE R S A R A H J A N E W A TE R S
(BORN LISHER)

I don’t know if Ida was taught the fashion skills that her
Mother, Sarah Jane, had practiced at least in her young
life. Ida was relatively uneducated in the Three R’s
although she must have had some schooling as I have a
photo of the little school in Southwell which Ruby was
told she attended. She was however skilled in all the
domestic and farming duties that were considered an
education in those days. She took her love of Rhode
Island Red hens with her well into her old age and
always kept a little ‘farm’ in her back-yard. (Stella’s
children used to call her “Granny cuckoo-fowl”). As a
young girl she was also a gifted musician playing the
piano, the zither and harp. I know nothing about her
siblings.
As we’ve heard already, Ida and Jack were much
IDA BEATRICE WATERS AS A YOUNG
admired roller-skaters. Sadly, on her marriage all her
GIRL
musical instruments and talents and skates were left in
the family home never to be touched again. From now
on her path would be mapped and marked only by children and domesticity.

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