Courageous

Lydia Foreman, Eliza Whitlock and Emily Dempsey were all women who needed to reconfigure their lives, and their means of earning their living, due to their changing circumstances. Lydia, married to Thomas, had several children; she was widowed by 1861, when she was working as a seamstress, with some of her children still living with her. Eliza, her daughter, was born in 1841, and in 1861 was living with her married sister. In 1863, she married William Dempsey, an army sergeant. Three children then followed: Eliza Margaret, Emily Ann and William. Eliza was widowed early, by 1871, when she was working as a servant in Salisbury. At that time Lydia was the housekeeper for the curate of St Martin’s, Sarum. Eliza’s three children were boarded out with one Mary Foster, a seamstress whom presumably Eliza was paying to take care of her children. I assume she had very few options, needing work that paid enough to maintain her and the children, and unable to keep them with her while working as a live-in servant.

Life seems to have improved over the next ten years. Eliza married Robert Whitlock in 1879, moving to live with him in Warminster, Wiltshire; Emily, aged 14, lived with them, working as an apprentice dressmaker. Her two siblings were still in Salisbury, but by now living or staying with their grandmother, Lydia, who was working as a nurse. Whether Eliza and Robert could not afford to have all three children with them, or whether Eliza Margaret (also an apprentice dressmaker, aged 16) and William (a scholar) had commitments that kept them in Salisbury, I do not know. It is possible that they were simply staying with Lydia at the date of the census. We lose sight of William after this date. By 1891, Lydia is living on her own means, living as a lodger. Eliza, Robert and Emily are still in Warminster, where Emily is the assistant school mistress. It is the following ten years which highlights the vulnerability of women at this time. Lydia died in 1893, in Warminster, implying that she possibly moved in with her daughter before her death. At some point over this time, Robert also died, leaving Eliza as a widow for the second time, and again needing to earn her own living. In 1901, both Eliza and Emily are found in London, where Eliza is the housekeeper and Emily the housemaid for the same household. Whether Emily was forced to give up her position as assistant school mistress on Robert’s death, whether it did not pay enough to keep both women, or whether she chose to stay with her mother, I do not know. Would it have complicated life if they were seeking a position together? Nevertheless, together they worked and, twenty years later, they were still together. Now aged 80, Eliza Whitlock is back in Salisbury with Emily, who is head of household, and has reverted back to her original training to work as a dressmaker. They also have a lodger; together, this must have earned enough to keep them both. When Eliza died, I do not know, but Emily died in 1928, aged around 60. For all three women, their economic circumstances, their families and life changes meant they needed to seek out means of earning their living, and supporting family when needed. Apart from Lydia in old age, none seem to have had the economic security to live independently, and had to go where the work took them. For Emily, this may well have meant giving up her work in school to become a housemaid.

But what of the oldest daughter, Eliza Margaret? It may not surprise regular readers of this blog to discover that she joined the Community of All Hallows. At least, I think she did. An Eliza Magaret Dempsey joined us, being professed as Sr Margaret in 1887, and I am fairly sure that she is from this family. Due to a discrepancy in birth years (14th May 1864 or the 14th May 1865), I cannot be a hundred percent sure. Sr Margaret was a lay Sister, whose life was lived in very different circumstances to her sister, mother and grandmother. Not long after her profession, she was sent out to our house in Canada, possibly travelling with the Bishop, who knew us through his mother-in-law. She was there for about six years, returning in 1894. By 1901, she was working at our hospital (pictured), based in the village of Ditchingham, where she was to stay for at least the next twenty years, working with Sr Augusta, the Sister-in-Charge. She worked there as a nurse, alongside lay staff. There was always a Community presence in the hospital, but in these years the only Sisters registered there were Sr Margaret, Sr Augusta and one or two Third Order Sisters. It would have been a very intimate setting, and one which may have given Sr Margaret more responsibility than a lay Sister would have had at the Community House.

For this brings me to another fact that I am fairly sure I remember about Sr Margaret – but it is based on memory only. We have some letters dating back to the 1920s, about the position of lay Sisters within the Community. At this point, no lay Sister had a vote in Chapter, so very little influence on the life and running of the Community. More Novices were joining as choir Sisters, due to increased standards of education; some of these women would have been lay Sisters in the past. There was some distress over this, and I am fairly sure that it was Sr Margaret who wrote, from the hospital, asking if the lay Sisters could have a vote in the election of the Reverend Mother. A letter signed by other lay Sisters. This letter, and others linked with it, are in our Archives, although I have not seen them recently. I believe the lay Sisters were granted this vote, although it was not until 1944 that the system ended completely. We also know that in 1934 Sr Margaret had to come out of retreat to nurse Sr Ethel; whether she was by then based at the Community House, or whether she was just staying there for the retreat, I do not know. The next mention of her in the Community diary states that she died at 12.15pm on the 26th March 1944. It was Passion Sunday [the Sunday before Palm Sunday], and she died as the elevation bell was rung at the Eucharist [the bell is rung when the bread and wine are consecrated for Communion]. She had been ailing for two and a half years. It was later the same year that the system of lay and choir Sisters ended. While she lived a different life to that of her relatives, it seems to me that Sr Margaret would have needed as much courage and flexibility as they did. Qualities which are still needed by many today.