And this week I have received another old cemetery photograph taken at the funeral of Ethel Mary Franklin in 1925 – a beautiful display of floral tributes with the cemetery chapel in the background.
Ethel Mary was born in 1882, the seventh child of Henry Smith and his wife Emma. At the time of the 1891 census Henry was living at 12 Sanford Street with his large family. He would soon leave his job in the GWR Works and set up in business as a carpenter and undertaker. By 1901 he was living in Gordon Road where the firm of A.E. Smith had their premises for more than 50 years.
Ethel appears on the census of that year as an 18 year old pupil teacher. By 1911 she was 28 years old and living with her parents, her sister, her nephew and an elderly, widowed aunt, at 1 Clifton Street. Ethel was working as a school teacher at one of the Swindon Board Schools.
On April 26, 1913 she married railway clerk Arthur Henry Franklin at the Wesley Chapel, Faringdon Road. A daughter named Ruth Gertrude, was born in September the following year and a son Eric Sutton in 1919.
Arthur served in the war as a clerk in the Army Corps and returned safely to the family home at Langleigh, Kingshill Road. Ethel, Arthur, Ruth and little Eric settled down for the rest of their lives, but sadly it was not to be a happy ending. Tragedy struck when Ethel was admitted to the Victoria Hospital in 1925. Infection set in when a swab was accidently left inside her during an operation and Ethel died on October 18, 1925. Her funeral took place on October 22 when she was buried in grave plot D189 close to the grave of her parents.
Arthur remarried and when he died in 1954 he was buried with Ethel. Ruth, their daughter who was just 11 years old when her mother died, went on to become a nurse. Their son Eric became first an architect and then served at Dunkirk and Monte Cassino during the Second World War.
This photograph of the floral tributes on Ethel’s grave was sent to me by Steve, who also supplied the Smith family photograph when he attended one of our cemetery walks some years ago.
You may also like to read:
Radnor Street Cemetery 