MONO MONDAY - STONE

Trying to think outside the box again, as soon as I saw the theme for this week’s Mono Monday Challenge, I thought of Mr. HCB’s grandfather, Frederick Stone.

Frederick, known as Fred, was born at Chirton, Wiltshire in 1873 and after school began working in the Great Western Railway in 1890 as a 3rd Engineman at Trowbridge, cleaning locomotives.  He worked his way up through various stations and became a Shunter then a Fireman and eventually a Locomotive Driver.  

In 1898 Fred married Amelia Jane Hillier at the Parish Church in Colerne, Wiltshire.  At the time Amelia was “in domestic service” at a large house in Box, which is now a well-known public house, known as The Northey Arms.  At the bottom of the garden is the main train line from London to South Wales.  Mr. HCB remembers his grandfather telling him that he used to drive his train from Swindon to South Wales and when Amelia was at the bottom of the garden watching the trains go by, Fred used to wave to her.  They obviously started courting then got married and had 5 children, 2 boys and 3 girls - Mr. HCB’s mother, Phyllis, was the “baby” of the family, born in 1913.

Fred retired in June 1933 when he was 60 years old and died in October 1963, aged 90.  Mr. HCB remembers his Grandfather telling him lots of stories, because in his latter years, he lived with them, but interestingly, until I started researching the Family History, Fred had never mentioned to Mr. HCB that he had been fined several times for “disorderly conduct”!  On one occasion, in Newport, South Wales, he fell into the turntable pit and injured his knee.  In the report it states, “The fog was thick at the time and Stone was a stranger to Newport.”  

Another interesting fact is that in 1901, Fred and Amelia had moved to Swindon and lived in a house three doors away from where my own grandparents lived when they were first married in 1919.

Sadly I don’t have photographs of Fred’s sons, Frederick Ewart and Reginald John, but the collage shows Fred at the top left, sitting in his favourite deck chair in Joan and Harry’s garden, when he lived with them - possibly sometime in the 1960s.  Fred and Amelia at the top right in June 1935 - this was taken at the marriage of Mr. HCB’s parents. The photograph below them is the Parish Church of St. John the Baptist at Colerne where they were married.

At the bottom left is Fred’s oldest daughter, Gwendoline Minnie Stone, known as Gwen, born in 1903;  this is the only photograph we have of her.  The middle photograph shows Fred’s middle daughter, Laura Elsie May Stone, known as Ettie, born in 1908, taken at her wedding in 1935 at the Methodist Central Hall, Swindon and at the bottom right is Mr. HCB’s mother, Phyllis Evelyn Joan Stone, born in 1913, pictured as a bridesmaid at her sister’s wedding when she was 22 years old.  1935 was obviously an expensive year for Fred and Amelia with both their daughters getting married!

Five “Stones” in the photographs and many stones in the church at Colerne, including gravestones!

“It’s important to teach our children their heritage. 
Who are your ancestors? 
What were their traditions? 
Each of us has a story to tell. 
If these stories are unwritten, 
then how are your children going to know of their parentage?” 
Linda Weaver Clarke