A Festival of Postcards 3rd Edition--Signs

Evelyn Yvonne Theriault over at A Canadian Family Acadian and French-Canadian Genealogy has called for postcards featuring signs for the 3nd Edition of A Festival of Postcards.

This photo postcard was in a photo album that my grandmother made for my aunt. When I first saw that it was from England, my educated guess was that it was a Hughes and with my grandmother’s identification written on the back, decided it was my great great grandmother, Mary Ann Storey Hughes. My grandmother had one too many great’s for my aunt. Mary Ann would have been her great grandmother!

I took the card with me when I had the good fortune to visit relations in Hartlepool, England back in 2003 and the picture was identified by folks that knew her. It was indeed my great great grandmother, Mary Ann Storey Hughes.

She is standing outside of the family’s green grocer store located at 70 Florence Street, in the Longhill section of West Hartlepool, England. Florence Street was one of three main streets in Longhill located near the steel mill. I have enlarged the area around her head to feature some of the signage on the storefront windows. About the only one I can actually read is the one for D.C.L. Yeast.

The family lived in rooms inside the store. John George Marsh, a grandson, who lived in the family quarters at 70 Florence as a child, said that the store was in one room that opened into a “family room” where Mary Ann would sit in a chair by the fireplace holding a big fly swatter to swat the flies. A grand daughter, Betty Hughes Jamieson told me that later in life Mary Ann was very overweight and had a huge wattle that hung down under her chin and when she walked it swung from side to side. A genealogist couldn’t ask for a more descriptive picture than that!