A tale about Jessie and Glorie

If I am going to some sort of organisation, I will probably need to use my words to communicate.

So Jessie was part of a large family. There was her and her sister Glorevienna, and a whole lot of brothers. I don't know where she fitted into the sequence of children. Maybe I will eventually know this as well. Here is her birth certificate.

And there we have the parents names of James and Henrietta Susanna. I am surprised as the story goes that she only married when she was 41, not due to her being a difficult person , but, rather being a heart broken one due to not being allowed to marry an Afrikaans boy she had her eye on.

Aunty Glorie was Jessi's youngest sibling. She is the one connection that I had with my grandmother who died many years before I was born.

Aunty Glorie one christmas

I knew Aunty Glorie and she was a little old lady that came to our house at least once a week and had tea and told stories. She had the bluest eyes. She wore a neck brace as she had problems arthritis of the spine? She used to smoke Rothman cigarettes and always kept her lighter tucked into the box. She had a bit of a hang up that she had been brought up to be totally defendant on men. Both she and Jessie were brought up to be princesses. It is so sad that they were not able to pursue a career.

Both of these sisters we widowed at an early age. At least Glorie decided to survive, unfortunately Jessie did not. I think it was too hard for her to try and look after herself. Poor lady.

Well back to Aunty Glorie and the tales she told. All of the tales she told where really out there. She loved telling stories about the farm where there was a lake that was so deep that nobody had ever see the bottom of it. She even had a story of a fish coming to the surface with a luminescent lantern attached to it's head. I have seen those in pictures, but, I really did not think that they were found inland. 

The other stories were of her brothers. These boys used to go out on the farm to do things (cattle horses whatever). They had a cottage that they stayed in when away from the homestead. She said that once a week one of the boys would make a pot of oats, which they would throw into a draw, and then cut slices off this for their meals. In this day and age it seems strange for all of these people to have been so inept.

Part of the tales were that when the boys were out there they encountered large gas fire balls that would chase them to the cottage and then bounce around and over the cottage. She told these tales frequently, always in soft tones, just in case the fireball came to find her. She inferred that these were live entities of either alien or spiritual origins. A lot of her life was being amazed and bemused about the spirits that surrounded her. Possibly from having lost so many siblings. She had two children named Meryl and Arthur. Sadly neither of them had children to pass the tales onto. I was given her name, Glorievienna, as a second name, so in a way I am reminded of her. She was kind to my mother and her brother when their parents died. 

What a hard life these farmers knew. There seems to be very little glamour! These photo are from a 100 years ago so it is not that bad.

Glorievienna Janet Davison 1910. 

Please leave a comment, it would be fun to hear what you think.