"Dear Minnie..."

Emma Savage's Letters to Araminta Brown

Sent to Miss M Brown, c/o Mr Longden, Thorne Croft, Keighley.
Obviously Araminta didnt stay long in Halifax, and then she was working for the Lord Mayor of Keighley.
It was from his home that she was married.

19th Decr,1901

Dear Minnie,

I was pleased to hear from you. I could not imagine why you did not answer my last letter - but never mind as long as you are alright.

We all have colds. The Master has been in bed for some days with influenza he wont have a doctor. We have one day freezing hard the next a thaw & quite mild its no wonder so many are knocked up - Old Mr S. came down this morning both keep very well I am pleased to say.

I am glad you are comfortable where you are - I dont blame you for changing perhaps its all for the best.

The Glemsford band came the other night 10.30 we were all in bed we did not get up - they were so spiteful they banged on the knocker four times Nell barked but we refused to turn out of bed.

Gersham seems a littled better perhaps he will as he gets older.
I saw Rillo the other Sunday he seems alright. How is your young man? I hope he has not got shot. I wish the tiresome war was over.
Tom and Annie are still the same.

Wishing you a
Jolly Christmas
Your sincere friend
E.Savage.

Another intriguing letter, both for the questions it raises, and for the minutiae of life around Christmas 1901!

• We can only guess that Minnie may have been too busy to write earlier.
• Throughout the letters, the passing references to the weather add to their interest; how typical of the time that Mr Savage would NOT call out a doctor!
• "Old Mr S.": this would be George Savage's father - and "both keep very well"!
  The 1913 letter talks about their 73rd Wedding Anniversary in 1912, so by Christmas 1901 they had already celebrated their 62nd, and were roughly 81 and 83 years old!
• We are not entirely sure of the sequence of MInnie's (Domestic Cook) jobs, but she was working for the Lord Mayor of Keighley by now.
• One of my favourite mental pictures from all the letters is that of the Glemsford Band turning up at Brick Kiln, late evening, just before Christmas 1901, for some fun, and being ignored by the residents.
  I don't blame Emma at all. Perhaps she should have let Nell out to sort them out.
  But it goes to show, perhaps, that "modern" irritants like bad Carol Singers or Trick and Treaters are nothing new.
  At a more serious level, there are few references to the Glemsford band. In "Glorious Glemsford", Richard Deeks has a photo of the Glemsford Brass Band, 1893: presumably, the same outfit.
• Is there hope for Gersham? Rillo potters on as normal
• We gather, again, that Minnie's young man was still in South Africa, fighting the Boers. We hope she was comforted by Emma's wish that he had not "got shot"!
  We also assume that Minnie's young man was the John McGuire whom she married in 1902.
• Tom and Annie were, presumably, Tom Brown and Annie Wright, the only occupants ("servants") of the (Glemsford) Brick Kiln at the 1901 Census.

Read about what we know about the
Brown Family History and what we know about
their "future" in the 20th Century