Lovekin Family Photos Reunited!

I am returning to my blog after a long absence with some very happy news. My last project involved photographs and paperwork relating to the Lovekin Family and I am excited to say that Jenny, the granddaughter of Margaret Jane Lovekin, has contacted me and will be reunited with these precious family documents!

Jenny has provided a lot of background information about her family, though she can only speculate why her Granny (or other family member) might have hidden the Gladstone bag and it’s contents under the floorboards. So that mystery continues.

Less mysterious though, thanks to Jenny, is the identity of a girl called Mollie. I had planned to write a full blog post about Mollie because she is named on two ‘photo postcards’, which are both extremely charming:

In this first image Mollie is on the left and appears to be with her family, presumably her mother and grandparents. She doesn’t look happy! In fact, Mollie had been crying, as explained on the back of the card: ‘This was taken by an amateur so it’s not as good as it might be, but still it’s us. Mollie has a great objection to the camera and had a good cry before this was taken.‘

The second postcard is a studio portrait of Mollie when she was a little older. On the back is written ‘With Mollie’s love to Uncle Joe and Aunty Sarah‘. Mollie’s age is given as 7 1/2:

But just who is Mollie and how does she relate to the Lovekins?

Jenny has provided the answer. Mollie’s full name is Hester Mary Fallows, and she was born in 1892 in Shifnal, Shropshire. In 1920 she married William Lovekin, the middle child of John Lovekin and Alice Dean (see this post for a family tree). Mollie is therefore Jenny’s great aunt by marriage!

Mollie can also be seen in another of the photographs, as identified by Jenny, this time attending the wedding of son Henry John Lovekin (a.k.a. Jack) in 1949:

Written on reverse: Mr & Mrs Jack Lovekin, married 1949

Proud parents Mollie (Hester Fallows) & William Lovekin, standing behind the bridesmaids

Jenny remembers visiting ‘Auntie Mollie and Uncle Billy’ in Wolverhampton, when she was a child. The photographs have brought back a lot of memories for her.

Finally, in a previous post I included a ‘four generation’ photograph of the Dean/Lovekin family, and Jenny has kindly provided a later ‘four generation’ photograph that includes herself as a child, alongside her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother Alice Dean!

L –> R: Margaret Cromb nee Lovekin (grandmother); Jenny Stroud; Joyce Mary Stroud nee Cromb (mother); Alice Lovekin nee Dean (great-grandmother). Photograph taken at Crackley Bank, Shifnal, circa 1952/3.

Thank you Jenny, for contacting me, sharing your stories and photographs, and for generally brightening an otherwise difficult time. I look forward to meeting you, pandemic-permitting!