"Dear Minnie..."

Emma Savage's Letters to Araminta Brown

The address on the envelope is: Miss Minnie Brown, Manor Road, Halifax, Yorkshire.

27 June 1901

Dear Minnie,

How are you getting on in this warm weather?

We are living down here now and I am glad of it only go up once a fortnight.

Rillo is getting on alright but Gersham gives a lot of trouble.

We went to a Garden Party at Dr Kings Sudbury Tuesday and a concert we took Mrs Sam Garrett '- nee Katie Bird' we all enjoyed ourselves it was very good indeed.
For Whitsuntide we had Mr and Mrs George May and a nephew George Savage from Leicester.

Annies sweetheart has behaved very shabby, but dont you tell a soul he paid up well till the child had turned 12 months old then he said he should pay no more nor yet marry her - she went to get a summons and was told by law it was too late as one must take a summons out before the first 12 months expires - so she has no claim, he had learnt that in the army of course it upset her very much.

Ada Pegg is going to marry Bernard Pettit they will live in the cottage near us.
With love I remain
your affc. friend E.S.

Some more fascinating "human" detail here:

• the Savage businesses are obviously still thriving, that they can spend more time in the country.
• Rillo continues to impress, but Gersham is still up to his old tricks.
• Dr King: possibly, this was Herbert King of 52 Friars Street, "Medical Practitioner" according to the 1901 Census.
• Mrs Sam Garrett/Katie Bird: daughter of William Bird, the brickmaker at the (Cavendish) Brick Kiln; Katie was 27 in 1901. She and Sam Garrett (33), Miller and Maltster, lived at Pentlow Hall Farm. William and Kate are mentioned in the 1905 letter.
• Despite frantic searches, we cannot be precise about either George May, or George Savage, the "nephew from Leicester".
  It is just possible that the George May may be the same person as the 5 year old living with his Savage grandparents in 1881.
• Poor old Annie Wright! Her story can now be told.
• Ada Pegg and Bernard Pettitt are first mentioned in the letter of November 1900. It isn't clear , but it is possible that they would live in the same cottage occupied by her mother and sister at the time of the 1901 Census.
  Ada and Bernard married in the September quarter of 1901.

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