Majorie Olive – the beloved child of Jack and Frances Warren

Marjorie Olive was a precious baby, as every baby should be. The fact that she only lived 5 months did not diminish the joy and bewilderment her parents experienced at her birth and her death.

Short was the little strangers stay

She came but as our guest

She tasted life then fled away

To her eternal rest

John Oliver Warren and Frances Alice Iles were married at St. Paul’s Church, Swindon on April 10, 1915. John was working as a clerk in the GWR Loco Department Offices – but not for much longer. The First World War was raging; conscription was introduced in January 1916. Perhaps John was already serving by the time of Marjorie Olive’s birth and death.

Unfortunately, John’s Attestation Papers (the documents drawn up at the time of enlistment) have not survived. However, his discharge papers are accessible and we know he was serving as an Acting Sergeant in the Royal Army Medical Corps when he was discharged on June 11, 1919 at the end of the war.

John returned to his former life; to Frances and his home in Swindon; to his job as a clerk in the railway works. But life would never be the same again – how could it?

Frances died in 1926 and John in 1930. They are buried together with their little daughter Marjorie Olive. Their grave has recently been re-discovered and cleared by the Radnor Street Cemetery volunteers.