Person:Ann Lloyd (13)

Often known as Jinny.

1871 - With parents in household of paternal grandparents at 71 Back Church Lane, Whitechapel. Aged 2, born at Whitechapel. Recorded as Jane.

1881 - With parents at 11 Brickfield Cottages, West Ham, Essex. Scholar, aged 11, born at St Georges East, Middlesex. Recorded as Ann J.

1891 - With husband and son at 89 Colegrave Road, West Ham, Essex. Aged 21, born at Limehouse, London. Recorded as Jane.

1898 - Daughter, Sophia Felicity, died aged 17 months.

1901 - With husband and 5 children at 13 Melrose Road, Cann Hall, Essex. Aged 31, born at Newington, London. Recorded as Ann.

1901 - Husband committed suicide. Sue GEDGE writes that Ann Jane was thirty-two and was left with five children to support, the youngest being nine months old. As an ordinary, virtually illiterate working class woman, (she could write her name, but no more than that, an advance on her mother, Emma FRANKLIN, who signed her marriage certificate with a cross), she had no obvious means of earning a living. A lesser person might have sunk under this bereavement, but Grandma Sims was a survivor.

1911 - Ann Jane SIMS, widow, head of household, with 5 children in 6-room residence at 62 Ash Road, Stratford. Recorded (then crossed through) as married 22 years with 7 children, 5 living and 2 dead. Lavatory attendant, worker, West Ham Council, aged 41, born at (unknown) Essex.

1963 - Death Index: Name: Ann J Sims; Birth Date: abt 1869; Date of Registration: Jun 1963; Age at Death: 94; Registration District: Romford; Inferred County: Essex; Volume: 5a; Page: 406.

Two stories have been passed down (from Sue GEDGE) which reflect Jinny's spirit. The first is that, on her return from her husband’'s funeral, she found that big black bows had been tied on to her two youngest children, Jenny Hilda, then aged eighteen months and Margaret aged nine months, by her mother-in-law. She ripped these bows off indignantly, perhaps partly in repudiation of the trappings of Victorian-style mourning, perhaps also to assert that life had to go on. The second is that when two of her brothers-in-law, who were lay preachers at Gurney Road Baptist Church, Leyton, informed her (no doubt in a well-intentioned manner) that her best course of action as a widow was to put her three daughters into an orphanage and send the two boys out to service, she ‘showed them the door’, firmly rejecting any suggestion that her family should be split up. Instead, she supported them herself, first by taking in washing and then becoming the attendant at the Ladies Public Convenience at Marylebone Point Station. Two single women who worked at Boardman’s Department Store, Stratford, and who later became missionaries in China, gave her clothing for the girls. Ann Jane proved herself to be a person of strong opinions and considerable skills, able to sew a dress by hand without a pattern and produce expert crotcheted items. She supported the Liberals, always wearing a big yellow rosette at election times and arguing politics vigorously with her son Harold, who was inclined to vote Tory. Another family story reflects her equanimity in the face of life and death. This was during the blitz, when she came upon the bodies of two tramps, a man and a woman who were frequently seen around the area of Green Lanes, Ilford. They had been killed by the blast and Grandma Sims covered them with a piece of sacking and calmly walked on.