Edgar Jeffery was born in 1838 in Oxford, his parents were Stephen and Ann (nee Brooks) Jeffery. His father Stephen ran a Market Garden in St. Giles Fields, St. Giles, Oxford. In 1845 when Edgar was 7 his father died aged just 49. His mother Ann then became the proprietor of the market garden, in those days that must have been quite something. Very unusual for a female, and a married one at that!
Once Edgar was old enough, about 10, he became the office boy. His brothers and sisters also helped out in the business. Edgar later became a gardener, then eventually a dairyman. In 1860 he married Mary Ann Day from Sutton Courtney (Berkshire). They married in Oxford, and continued to live there all their married life.
In 1861 their first child was born, Edgar Charles, their one and only son! Edgar and Mary Ann went on to have eight more children – all girls! When son Edgar Charles was in his early 20's, already married to Eugene Kent, and with their first child, a son called Edgar Charles Walter (you really have to keep your wits about you, with so many Edgars around!), he (Edgar Charles) decided in July1883 (with wife, and child now nine months old), to sail out to Canada. No wonder Edgar Charles got married and sailed off to Canada, you can just imagine what it was like with eight younger sisters, including one set of twins!
We can now fast forward to 1903. Sometime during that year Mary Ann (Edgar's wife) decided to visit Walsall, I haven't yet been able to find out why. She may have been trying to visit a daughter who got married there. There doesn't seem to be any trace of the daughter or her husband, they were there in 1891, but nothing since. This sometimes does happen, they just disappear, it makes you wonder if perhaps spaceships really do come down and kidnap people!!
I wonder if I shall ever find out why she was there, whatever the reason unfortunately the result was tragic, Mary Ann died of a heart attack in October 1903, in Walsall. Her youngest daughter, also called Mary Ann (but known as Ann), was the informant of her mother's death. Ann lived in Oxford, I have no way, yet, of knowing if she was travelling with her mother in Walsall, or if she was just called from Oxford to identify her mother and be the informant. I'm surprised that Edgar (Mary Ann's husband), wasn't the one called to Walsall. Sometines it's very frustrating not to be able to find out more! I'm still hunting!
In March 1904 Edgar, at the age of 65, decided to marry again! He married 35 year old Ada Evelyn Thorpe, she helped him to run a boarding house with the assistance of one of his daughters, Hesse. (one of the twins). Edgar and Ada E. had one child, daughter Evelyn Phillis Hesse, born in 1906, so Edgar had yet another daughter, making nine daughters altogether, add on Edgar Charles, his only son, and that makes ten children, the same number of children as his brother Tom!
- Edgar lived to see his youngest daughter, Evelyn Phillis Hesse's first marriage in 1924. She became a widow and married again in 1950.
- Edgar Jeffery died at home in November 1925, from heart disease. Aged 87.
- Evelyn Phillis Hesse died in 1994. Aged 86.
So from Edgar's birth in 1838, to the death, in 1994, of his youngest daughter Evelyn, is an incredible span of 156 years!