Doing research on the family- the truth is more tragic than I thought.  I am having some challenge finding Great Gran Gamsby’s age.  Her parents were married in 1844, and on her marriage announcement she is entitled the eldest daughter of Robert Esson, but I think this must be incorrect.  This would make her around 40 when she married Guy Gamsby. I will have to look into this further.

Helen Esson, my great gran, did marry a widower.  His first wife, Catherine Amelia Radenhurst, was the daughter of a prominent Perth family.  They were married less than four months and she died-pulmonary consumption the register states.

My gran- daughter of a ‘gentleman’ by the Canadian census- one of many daughters who never married-found an eligible man in Guy Gamsby .  Was this a gift or a ticket out of a harsher sentence-spinsterhood?

She was educated, she trained as a school teacher-something she would return to when her husband died.  His death was all to soon, fourteen years after he married my great gran.  He was sixty-one. His children were only four and six.

She must have been a strong woman. One of the first pictures that I have of her with her children, must have been just before her husband’s death- “we are doing fine- everything is okay,” must have been this message.

Married and widowed in fourteen years-in her mid-thirties(possibly forties)- she brushes herself off. She  stays with her elderly aunties a 4 Hales Cottage  for a few years while she gets back on her feet.  They (Elizabeth and Mary Stoughton) possibly can relate to a woman who has attempted to reach for domestic bliss only to be thwarted by death.  Were the young children in the house a joy or a challenge? Possibly both.

In a few years my great gran will move a few houses down from her aunties, continue her teaching career and raise her children.

This picture must have been right after or just before his death- my gran looks about four.  She is the little flower girl out front.  It is a wedding- a little joy in such trying times. Helen Gamsby is on the top right, and her aunts (Mary and Elisabeth) look like twins in the center of the picture.