Mary Ann Krempowiecki – remembered

The re-imagined story …

Today we buried Mary Ann Krempowiecki. I would not have known who she was had Mr. Bremner not been at the funeral.

I had worked for many years under Mr Bremner, one of the senior foremen in the Works, before I took the job of gravedigger. Maybe you think it a macabre occupation and an unusual one to choose, but I think it is an occupation that chooses the person – not everyone has the character to be a gravedigger. A man has to be physically strong, but more then that a man has to be respectful.

It was a bitterly cold day with a keening north easterly wind and dark clouds closing in, threatening snow. Not for the first time that day I reflected on the bleak situation of the cemetery high on Kingshill, quite forgetting its beauty during the other three seasons of the year.

There had been four burials in the cemetery that day. John Cottle, a machineman whose wife had chosen a grave plot in Section E close to the Kent Road gate. Amelia Schofield, a young mother who had died in the Royal United Hospital in Bath. And then there was an infant, there was always a child. This morning it had been a little girl barely eight weeks old.

There had been little enough labour to ward off the cold that late December day. I eagerly looked forward to the warm fire and cooked meal that awaited me at home. At least this last funeral of the day was close to the chapel affording some shelter for the mourners and the gravedigger.

And then I saw Mr Bremner and the young woman who stood at his arm and supported him. The funeral party was small, the elderly man and the young woman stood apart from the other mourners. It was obvious that Mary Ann Krempowiecki, daughter to one, mother to the other, was greatly mourned. I would not have known who she was had I not seen Mr Bremner at the graveside.

The facts …

The lengthy inscription on this headstone is all about William David James, but there is a brief mention of his wife and mother-in-law on the surrounding kerbstone. So, what do we know about Mary Ann Krempowiecki and her daughter Anne Bremner James?

Mary Ann Bremner was born in 1841 in Hawkhill Dundee, the eldest daughter of railwayman Peter Bremner and his wife Ann. The family arrived in New Swindon in about 1848 and a home at 5 Taunton Street, one of the properties demolished in the 1970s.

Mary Ann Bremner was just 18 years old when she married James Thomas Atkinson, a fitter in the GWR Works. The wedding took place on September 4, 1858 at St. Mark’s Church. At the time of the 1861 census Mary Ann is living at her parents home in Taunton Street with her one year old son Henry. A daughter was born later that year and baptised Annie Bremner Atkinson at St Mark’s Church on October 20th.

By 1871 James Thomas Atkinson was dead. Eleven year old Henry and Annie aged 9 are living with their grandparents in Taunton Street. Their mother was living in London where on August 21, 1868 she had married Charles Stanislas Krempowiecki, the son of a Polish refugee. Mary Ann’s father-in-law Thaddeus Krempowiecki had stated that his occupation was Commission of Police in Poland, on his own marriage certificate, but was dead by the time of his son’s wedding.

Mary Ann Krempowiecki was back in Swindon and living with her parents at 5 Taunton Street when she died in December 1883. She was just 43 years old. Her funeral took place on December 29, 1883 when she was buried in plot A1091.

Annie Bremner Atkinson married William David James at St. Mark’s Church, Swindon on September 5, 1881. Ten years later, at the time of the 1891 census she is recorded as living at 27 Read Street with her husband and two sons William, 7 and Frank 1 years old. Another son Frederick was born in 1894 and a daughter Amy was born in 1896.

Annie died in St. Thomas’ Hospital London aged 37 in March 1899, following the birth of her son Wilfred. She was buried with her mother on March 13, 1899 in plot A1091.

William David James died on June 19, 1914 and was buried in plot A1091 with his wife and her mother. When his family erected the headstone they chose to mention their father in great detail, and rather less about their mother and grandmother.