AN INTRODUCTION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TO OUR FAMILY HISTORY by Kath Harpley Dec 2019

AN INTRODUCTION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

 TO OUR FAMILY HISTORY 
by Kath Harpley 
Dec 2019

My mother, Josephine Ellis, the family historian and genealogist, not only passionately wrote up her own family history, that of the Folwells-her paternal line and the Thompsons, her maternal line, but she also wrote up the journey of my father’s life as she remembered it being told to her. She recounted it in remarkable detail and it seems she was able to extract more from my dad than any other, possibly because she knew him in the early years after WW2, when they were both young and all this was fresh in the memory. How lucky we are that mum was so meticulous and to have these family documents. Mum did such a fabulous job with her own family and it just left it to me to retype it as a blog for all to see, adding pictures. My attention has then gone to capturing my father’s history, which was sad, traumatic and harrowing in his young life in Poland, Siberia and  then in WW2.

Shortly after Dad died, I asked Dorothy McNulty, dad’s later lady friend, if she would contribute to dad’s life journey. Over many years she patiently and sympathetically listened to Dad and her contribution is a series of snapshots along his journey and in his case it really was a journey. She shows the humour of the man even whilst he endured great hunger and distress.

Other contributions and anecdotes come from all his children who from an early age listened to his stories and as ignorant youngsters failed to understand the importance of this family history. In hindsight, and with age and experience we probably all regret not asking more questions and not really understanding what this remarkable man went through in his traumatic early life and not giving the empathy that was deserved.

The last person on the scene to sit and hear Dads life stories was probably Jim, my lovely hubby. Whilst at times struggling to understand dad’s difficult English, Jim listened and he has been able to contribute things that I had never heard of, so thank you Jim for having the patience where I failed.

If at times, my dad’s - Mark (hereon in, referred to as Mark) life story fails to flow or looks like it has been written by different people, well then it has. I didn’t want to change the tone of any contributions that have been made, either written or verbally or risk reinterpreting them into something else. 

For my part in this, I have tried to add some factual dates and history and thoughts and sentiment on the situations Mark endured (in italics). Whenever he told his life stories, he would recount one snapshot at a time and for most of us, without the historical background, it was difficult to put these snapshots into context. So hopefully, with the aid if historical research, I have now done that.

Secondly, I have pieced together Mark’s half brother Mieczyslaw Gigiera’s life journey which though similar to Mark’s, saw him in different places.

We (Jim and myself) visited Nudyze/Nudyzhe, Zablocie/Zabolottya, Luboml/Lyuboml and Kovel and the surrounding villages in what is now Ukraine in 2018 and again in 2019. We found Mark’s cousin Pawel, an old man of 85. Mark was a youngster when much of this happened and I believe he told the story of a youngster. The records and other people bring different perspectives and consequently, I have added to the story. We must all come to our own conclusions.

Lastly, other family members have been contributors to these blogs, 
Margaret Clayton's eulogy on her sister (my mother) Jo Ellis
Boris Gilbert on The 216 entry Craft Apprentice, his account of life in the RAF,
Joan Stenton on the Leesons who are distant relatives. I found this amongst mums genealogy files. I have no doubt mum asked Joan to write this.

My sincere thanks for all the contributions to the family history files.

Kath Harpley 

December 2019