non sibi sed toti	Parsons Family and Friends

Emily Index Chapter One: Her parents Chapter Two: Growing up in Wicklow Chapter Three: The Years of the Great War Chapter Four: Boarding School Chapter Five: The Idyll Ends Chapter Six: The Morris Minor - and Poland Chapter Seven:January 3rd or My Journey to Warsaw Chapter Eight: Sewerynov 3 Chapter Nine: Love in a cold climate Chapter Ten: Escape with a baby Chapter Eleven: Dubliners Chapter Twelve: Post-war London Chapter Thirteen: In Metroland Chapter Fourteen: Dreaming Spires Chapter Fifteen: Sheffield Chapter Sixteen: Gold and Diamond Chapter 5: The Idyll Ends Having left Mountmellick, Emily went on to the the Alexandra School of Cookery on 14th September 1920. She came home for occasional weekends, and Saturday 27th November she was luckily at home when a headache, followed by spots the next day, showed that she had caught measles.It kept her in bed until the 6th December. She did not return to the Alexandra until January, and when she did, her mother sent a concerned letter, of which these are extracts: I am sure you or the matron will be so kind as to see Emily's bedding is aired, as she has been away longer than some of the pupils and the weather is so damp. I am sending a small quantity of butter ... I am sure you will let her have it as un-ostentatiously as possible... Mr Wynne thought I ought not to have to supply the butter as in view of the high terms at the Residence and considering that it is the first Ladies' College in Ireland, it does not seem reasonable that there should never be a bit of butter and that margarine should be supplied at 3 meals a day... Emily left at Easter 1921, having filled a notebook with recipes, but she never spoke of her time there. She received a birthday letter from her father in June 1920, which is interesting enough to include in full: "Wicklow 19 June 1920 My own Sweet Pet, I write to wish you with all my loving heart a very very happy birthday, and may our loving Father grant very many more all happy and peaceful and surrounded with love. We miss you muchly here, but are always so glad to get your dear bright happy letters, don't think we watch for them to get "news", it is to catch a bright breath of your ever dear self we value them. I have been feeling tired ever since this fine warm weather set in and it makes me very lazy about doing things and O there is so much to be done in the garden. I get in despair at times - "but where is the use of complaining, for where there's a will there's a way." We were having the people from Ballyhenry to tea this afternoon to get to know them, and then Miss O'Neill has just come and says she is going to dump that starched magpie Miss DeButts on us - ugggh. I suppose Mother has told you how very ill Aunt Maria is? We got a telegram on Tuesday asking Mother and me to go to Edie at once. Dear Aunt Maria had had a stroke and was lying insensible in bed and has been so ever since. She was apparently a shade better yesterday but I fear she will never be quite well. We stayed there till yesterday, Aunt Edith came then, and stays with Edie, and we propose to go to her again for a while next week. I ran up to Belfast last week, and there had my Grand Lodge meeting in Portadown on Wednesday. The County Council Elections had just taken place, and in one village there every protestant house had this notice fastened to its door when they came out: To William and Mary Waite. It is understood that you intend to vote Unionist tomorrow. Now voting Unionist we take it you vote to keep Ireland in bondage. Therefore if you come to vote tomorrow be prepared to meet your God for you shall not return. What has been done in the south can be done in the north. The time for humbug is over. Signed The Black Hand of Glenelly. and them if any were frightened from voting, some Sinn Feiner personated them and voted Sinn Fein in their names. It's a cheerful time. The Diocesan Council has deputed me and the Archdeacon of Glendalough to go to Avoca, and hold a fresh Easter Vestry election there as Mr Robinson acted so badly at the first and it has been declared invalid. Won't we have a jolly time? I don't think. With much fond love to my own Darling Emily from her very loving Daddie. Later that year we have another reminder of the 'troubles', the fight for independence from England, in this safe conduct: LETTER "B" COMPANY, 71st Battalion THE CHESHIRE REGIMENT DATE 23 Nov. 1920 The bearer Mr. Wynne is a Magistrate of Wicklow. He is a loyalist and can be passed into the City of Dublin with safety. E. Morton Lieut. Colonel O. C. Troops Wicklow. In his birthday letter Edward mentioned feeling tired. He began the following year 1921 in bed with a heavy cold, and a cough that lingered, but he was soon very busy, going to the office and to the Petty Sessions in Dublin and Wicklow in his role as Magistrate, reading the lessons in church and working in the garden. He attended the Assizes at the end of February to find that women were in waiting as jurors for the first time. On March 3rd he spent the afternoon at the police barracks for a long case about a boy who stole money from the Chapel (the RC Church). On Good Friday he had to rest all morning. But he kept up with his duties. On Easter Tuesday he was at the Easter Vestry, the Church of Ireland annual parish meeting, which women were for the first time entitled to attend. In April he moved a rose bush in front of the dining room window, and planted the first beans. Two days later he was "very poorly", and the following week "very poorly indeed." He recovered, and spent the next months as active as ever, travelling to Belfast, for Orange Order business perhaps, and Dublin, and visiting relatives and friends. Evelyn's diary gives only hints of what was wrong. August 29 I think E went to Dublin to day and could see neither Moorhead nor Parsons[?] but I think he saw Sir W. Taylor. After supper he went to Dr. O'C. and then told me their desires in the garden. August 30 We all had a very sad day. August 31 E. and I left Wicklow by the 5.10. ... September 2 This day my darling husband had the operation performed and the Lord was most merciful to us. Sir Wm. came to see him in the afternoon and also in the evening. Sir William Taylor was one of the leading Dublin surgeons, at that time a member of the short-lived Southern Ireland Senate, who later attended Constance Markievicz. Until October 6th Edward was in Portobello, a handsome nursing home beside the Grand Canal, opened as a hotel in 1805; his love for his wife and children, and his Christian faith, remained strong as ever. Portobello Home Dublin 1st Septr. 1921 My darling Emily, Charlie will tell you what is in his letter, but I must tell you how dearly Daddie loves you and really rejoices over you and your loving, thoughtful ways. O how I bless God every day for his great love and wonderful generosity in giving me two such darling children of whom I feel so proud, and I regularly gloat over you both and over that most self-sacrificing, sympathetic and loving tender darling Mother. God has been very good to us all, and he shows every moment now still that he is thinking of us and spreading His wings over us and He will as He knows best send me back to you all happier and stronger. You know Him and love Him and He loves you and us all and is our friend and we do absolutely trust Him. Look after our plants and your sweet peas and by the way use any of the Barograph charts that suit (for putting on on Mondays) you will find them, once used, in the second drawer of the chest of drawers opposite it. And now Good night my Pet till we meet again. Your very fond Daddy. The barograph was a fine piece of equipment that recorded the air pressure, week by week, on paper fixed round a drum. It went to Charlie later, and no doubt his wife Doreen left it to her bank manager. Evelyn nursed her husband at home. On Thursday 13th October, for instance, she was up at 4 a.m. to change his dressing, which was wet. On 28th under doctor's orders "E. began to take valerian mixture." On 1st November he had to return to a nursing home in Dublin called Elpis - Greek for 'hope', where he stayed for three weeks. He struggled to attend Petty Sessions on 7th December, but was not at all well. The following August, had a stroke, from which he did not recover. The account that survives is Evelyn's notebook written for Charlie and Emily: My darling Children, I am trying to collect some of your dear Father's letters, that you have probably not read and also to write a little about his life. It seems easier to begin towards the end. Do you remember Sunday August 20th, 1923? It was the last day your dear Father was well. On Monday morning we found he had had a stroke and his dear mind had become like that of a gentle child of about four years of age. On that Sunday we all four went to Wicklow Church as usual, and after afternoon tea we all sat in the drawing room and your Father read the Bible to us and we were there for a long time. There was a heavenly kind of feeling. He spoke to us then out of the depths of his heart, about the Lord Jesus and how he loved Him and desired to please Him in everything. He said he could not remember any time in his life when he did not wish to do so. But he said that in part of his life he had allowed earthly things to take up too much of his thoughts. I think perhaps that was during some of the very difficult and trying years when he was so overworked and harried by his service in the County Council. He spoke of many other things in a deeply spiritual way. To me it seemed as if we were very near heaven that evening. He stayed up alone very late that night. I am sure he was communing with God, and praying for his dear ones. As you know on Monday morning he was only partly conscious but yet wanted most earnestly to get up and go to a meeting in connection with the Synod which of course he was quite unable to do. He continued in this way for eleven weeks when God recalled his dear spirit and he passed away to be with Him. All that time of his illness, the earthly part of his mind seemed to me to be like that of a gentle docile child, very, very patient and never complaining. But the spiritual part of his mind seemed sometimes to be awake. I do not know how to explain it better. One day he said to me "I see Jesus." I think he really did. On the last night he was very low and weak. We thought he was then passing away and nurse and I and the children were with him. I wanted to say something but could not think of anything but love. I said to him, "I love you, and Charlie loves you, and Emily loves you, and nurse loves you." Then quite firmly he said, "And Jesus loves me." Those were his last words. Canon Johnson, the Rector of Wicklow, father of Emily's friend Honor, spoke at the funeral on Thursday 15th November, and said: "His end was peace. It was my privilege to minister to him on most days during his last illness. I was deeply impressed with his simple faith in God's forgiving mercy through the efficacy of our Saviour's merits. Edward Wynne was far from being a self-righteous man; he knew what it meant, when conscious of any failing, to say in all humility, "Out of the depths have I cried, O Lord, hear my prayer." And he had that simple faith which enabled him to trust in the mercy of God and the all-sufficient merits of Jesus Christ, and in this simple trust he found perfect peace and was not afraid to face death when the call came. I shall not easily forget his last night here on earth. Seldom, if ever, have I been present at a more beautiful death-bed scene. Absolutely clear in his mind, entirely free from pain or physical distress, with his family around him, he lay in perfect peace waiting for the call." Edward died at home in Wentworth House, which had been Emily's only home for 21 years, and now, after a few months, the home had to be sold, Evelyn and Emily left Ireland for a time (Charlie had begun his career as an electrical engineer), and a period of wandering began. Emily's outline of dates has these entries: 1924 Summer: left Wicklow. Bath, France, Tunbridge Wells, Flass, C.M.J. Addiscombe, South Croydon, Upper Norwood. 1925 Easter (?Christmas) at Shalstone. Beckenham, Pimlico, Chelsea. 1926 C.M.J. Youth Weekend, High Leigh. Charlie to Farnham ? Back to Ireland. Of these years there is little record. A curiosity is the card printed by a weighing machine: Army and Navy Co-operative Society, Ltd. Weight ......8....... st ......9......... lb. Date ....1./.1./.25 ......... (Written above 8 st 9 is 7. 8 - allowing for clothes?) Why the family moved to some of the places mentioned I do not know. One has a family connection. Flass is a country house in Maulds Meaburn, Westmorland. The Maulds Meaburn web site notes: "On the outskirts of the village, to the South, is a Palladian style villa called Flass built in 1851 of white stone brought down from Orton Scar and set in about 15 acres of land. The building is now a residential school of the performing arts." Then it belonged to the Dent family. Hilda Dent, later a JP, was one year younger than Emily, her second cousin and good friend. Hilda's mother Edith was an Annesley before her marriage, as was Emily's grandmother, and in 1886, when she was 23, founded the Wild Flower Society. She was later given the OBE. The other noteworthy point is that twice the initials C.M.J. occur. This is the first hint of Emily's great passion for the Church Missions to Jews, as the name then was, now the Church's Ministry among Jewish people. The youth weekend which Emily attended in 1926 was at the conference centre in Hoddeston, Herts, called High Leigh, a favoured venue for CMJ conferences and Summer Schools to this day. By 1930 Emily was Central Secretary for the Ireland "Committee of the Girls' Guild"of the CMJ, and had been to a number of conferences. She kept the programmes, including this: Church Missions to Jews Twentieth Summer School September 3rd to 11th 1930 at The Hayes, Swanwick, Derbyshire, when Bishop Taylor Smith gave two evening talks, and the Revd H. C. Carpenter (Warsaw) spoke on Tuesday 9th in a session entitled "The Power of the Little." That talk must have impressed her. Harry Carpenter was still head of the mission in Warsaw when Emily first went there as a volunteer in January 1934. Meanwhile, the family needed to find a new home after their years of wandering. They chose Foxrock, in Co. Dublin, a quiet residential area on the single track railway line that then ran from Harcourt Street Station in Dublin (now long closed) to Bray and Greystones and beyond. The station served both Foxrock, on one side of the track, and Leopardstown race course on the other, and had a fine view over the race course to the Three Rock Mountain. Westminster Road led away from the station and the little group of shops, including a chemist (Evelyn pronounced it 'chimist') and Findlater the grocer, and on either side of Westminster Road lay rather large and opulent houses hidden behind the trees and shrubs of their big gardens. Gordon Avenue was a new road to the right, leading past Farmer Ogilvie's farmyard to his fields, where cows grazed and wild flowers abounded. Houses were being built along the road, and Evelyn chose one which she named 'Alders' in honour of the two alder trees she planted beside the front path. A copper beech grew in the corner of the front garden, and garlic later went wild in the small lawn below a bank. By the gate montbretia grew, and on top of the bank was a clump of red hot pokers. The drive led straight to a small wooden garage beside the house, where Emily's pride and joy, a Morris Minor, later lived. The back garden sloped up away from the house, and Evelyn had a tennis court levelled and fenced; tennis was a very popular social activity at the time. Emily's diaries have frequent references to tennis at the homes of various friends, and the photograph album has shots of very amateur badminton being played by people most unsuitably dressed for the sport by modern standards. The tennis court took up most of the space, but there was room for a path leading up the original slope to the left of the court, and to the left of the path apple trees and a small vegetable patch. The garden backed on to another of Farmer Ogilvie's fields. The house had a large hall, seeming larger because of a big mirror facing the hall door, off which a door to the left led to a drawing room stretching from front to back of the house, and containing an old and unstrung concert harp and a round table which could fold up and stand against the wall, as well as arm chairs, but no sofa. To the right were a small dining room, with a blunderbus and antique pistols above the fireplace and what was called in the family a tallboy, a tall thin chest of drawers full of interesting tools, pistols, cartridges, and so on. Next door was the kitchen. The staircase led off on the left, and was decorated with a fox's mask and two brushes, reminders of Evelyn's youthful hunting days, and a reproduction of 'Bubbles'. Upstairs was a corridor with four bedrooms and a bathroom. Evelyn and Emily could walk across the fields to Crinken Church on Sunday, where another worshipper was the aristocratic Mrs Beckett, whose son Samuel had unfortunately gone to live in Paris and was writing strange plays. In Crinken Church Evelyn kept two kneelers to mark her family pew, boxes with padded tops which opened so that you could take out the handsome gilt-edged Church of Ireland Prayer Book and matching Church of Ireland Hymnal that Edward had helped to compile. In the garden of Alders they could also hear the Angelus daily from the better attended Roman Catholic Chapel. Perhaps they were reminded of the ancestor of strong Protestant convictions, who had a house very near to a Roman Catholic Chapel. When he was asked if the ringing of the Angelus did not disturb him, he answered stoutly, "I never listen to the popish thing!" Alders was the safe haven where Evelyn lived until after the Second World War, and from which Emily made sorties for pleasure or Christian service, and to which she, and later her family, were able to return and find love and peace.