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'Sit tight' Joanne - Nicola will be back on here very soon !!

Dea Xxx

Hello everyone and most of all Joanne!! I've pm'd her a quickie.

Isn't this just amazing. I am just thrilled to bits that my tenacity has paid off after all these years. I hope that Joanne will be touched to see her late grandfather's poems when I send her copies.

The in's and out's of this tale are so intricate. And all because my dear grandmother left me a note to say that LDC had 'been killed just before the Armistice' and I felt that it was a case of unrequited love and just HAD to pursue it.

I'm standing by for Joanne to wake up and be in touch. So exciting.
:-D :-D :-D

She should be awake now - it is around lunch time over there !!

Hope you get to speak very soon !

Dea Xxx

Gosh, I've just noticed that I started this thread in 2008. And you've all stuck with me to the bitter end - and what a result!

N

Spooky really, because I had decided last night that I would give the Canadian newspapers a little nudge about the 'Love Story from WWI' to see if they wanted to carry the story.
No need for that now.
:-D

It all goes to show why keeping to a thread...year on year... is so valuable. Every now and then a little gem comes along. This is such a fantastic result!

Jude

Joanne is awake now and we've pm'd each other a bit.

I've asked her to post on the thread so that all you very kind and helpful folk can see where we're up to!

Just amazing. I'm very happy for her and her family that I will be letting her have copies of those lovely poems sent by a 'love lorn swain' almost exactly 100 years ago.

:-D :-D

Oh my giddy aunt - who could have hoped for an outcome like this.

Am doing a happy dance for Nicola and Joanne.

This has made my day!

And the even more extraordinary thing is that Joanne isn't/wasn't a GR. She just happened to use good old Google and chanced upon this thread where a complete stranger is chatting about her own grandfather as if they knew him and all his personal details.
She then joined GR just so that she could post her reply to me.
Giddy aunt indeed - and uncles, too.
:-D

This really is so cool, this coming together of people and facts and knowledge. I'm so grateful to know more about Leo. I knew almost nothing about him, as he didnt' talk about his childhood. I did not know he was one of the many British Home Children who emigrated to Canada before the war. I just feel sad for that little boy; what a scary and wrenching experience that must have been!

I do know he corresponded with his sister for some years. And visited England at least a couple of times after he was settled with wife and child in Montreal ( I found references to those visits yesterday). I'm going to see if I can find the sister and the mother. I guess I should start with the workhouse records MarieCeleste posted about.

Amazing!
Joanne

Thank you for the service records you posted, Marie Celeste! I read through them with great interest.

I t looks like he was in hospital at Aldershot between July and August of 1917 and was then discharged back to duty. And that's around the same time he dated the poem he gave your grandmother, Nicola - 9/6/1017. Hard to know if that reads November or July. So they must have met when he was on medical leave, hung out at the officer's mess on the way back, and wrote love poems to her on the stationary when he was still in hospital, or once he was back at the front.

How romantic...

what a fantastic story!!

I'm so happy for you both.

A bit of trivial thinking.....what if his "made-up" middle name was Delarno?

An anagram of Leonard

Jude

In case it helps find the mother and sister there are dozens of workhouse admissions for them on Ancestry, way too many to post here. They all seem to be for the Newington workhouse, Southwark.

They seem to have been constantly in and out of the workhouse, sometimes together, sometimes separately. In nearly all cases the parish from which they'd been referred was Newington. Mother Ada's birth year varies from 1882 to 1888 (latter seems unlikely given that Leo was born 1898). Daughter Ada Lily (sometimes Ada Lilian) is shown born 1911 and a couple of records give birth date as 6 May 1911.

The records for daughter Ada Lily span late 1911 to late 1914.

There is this birth which would fit the birth date given:

Births Jun 1911
Cox Ada L D Southwark 1d 84

and then this death:

Deaths Mar 1915
Cox Ada L D 3 Southwark 1d 115

That would seem to tie in with the admissions stopping after late 1914.

BUT - Joanne mentions that her grandfather used to correspond with his sister so that's odd. I can't see any mention of any other Cox child related to Ada senior (doesn't mean there wasn't).

What a fantastic story.

Just proves that one should never delete a thread.

Could this be mother with another child:

Name: Ada Cox
Discharge Date: 9 May 1916
Discharge Age: 31
Record Type: Discharge
Borough: Southwark
Parish or Poor Law Union: Southwark
Title: Newington Workhouse, Westmoreland Road Register, 1916

With daughter: May Winifred age 8

Well spotted AustinQ, now that I look for May/Mary Winifred Cox on her own there are numerous entries for her - all from Newington.

Not sure if this has been posted...here he is arriving in Canada to work for the publishing company

Name: Leo D Cox
Gender: Male
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1898
Birth Place: London, England
Age: 26
Date of Arrival: Aug 1924
Port of Arrival: Quebec
Port of Departure: London, England
Ship Name: Andania

Jude

The amount of time Ada was in and out of the workhouse there may have been another child.

I can't see any workhouse records with May Winifred's DOB on.

These are possible births -I don't know London area, but based on age on the workhouse records, I think the 1908 birth below is likely (please jump in if you think this is not the case)- if not, then at least it will discount.

Births Mar 1906 (>99%)
Cox May Winifred Islington 1b 187

Births Jun 1908 (>99%)
Cox May Winifred Camberwell 1d 941 99%)>>>>>>>

Births Mar 1909
Cox May Winifred W. Ham 4a 398
----------------------------------

The looking at marriages there's this:

Marriage:
Name: May W Cox
Spouse George W Wheatley
Date of Registration: Jul-Aug-Sep 1931
Registration district: Lambeth
Inferred County: Surrey
Volume Number: 1d Page Number: 548
--------------------------------------

Then possibly May on the 1939: (I don't have access but think there are other Cox people in the household

Wheatley Household Epsom and Ewell M.B., Surrey, England
May W Wheatley 1908 (30th April)
--------------------------------------

And this death which fits with Birth registration:

Name: May Winifred Wheatley
Birth Date: 30 Apr 1908
Date of Registration: Dec 1974
Age at Death: 66
Registration district: Surrey Mid eastern
Inferred County: Surrey
Volume: 17 Page: 0105

Possible birth, marriage & death for May:


Births Jun 1908 (>99%)
Cox May Winifred Camberwell 1d 941


Marriages Sep 1931 (>99%)
Cox May W Wheatley Lambeth 1d 548

Name: May Winifred Wheatley
Birth: 30 Apr 1908
Death: Dec 1974 - Surrey Mid eastern, Surrey, England