We are grateful to Colin Beal for sending us these images of a postcard he came across. It is postmarked Rotherham 9.45pm, 10 December 1907 and addressed to:

Miss Abell, "Holly Dene", Totley Brook Rd, Near Sheffield.

The message reads:

Dear E. Kindly excuse this P.C. instead of promised letter. Father very poorly & myself bad with neuralgia, tell you all on Thursday, excuse ?. Yours in haste. With Best Wishes etc. Harry.

Thanks for your P.C.

The recipient was Edith Annie Abell who was born on 4 February 1887 in Sheffield to parents William Penty Abell, a butcher, and his wife Mary Ann Pridmore who married at St. Simon, Eyre Street, Sheffield on 28 April 1884. William was from Selby, Yorkshire and Mary Ann from Luffenham, Rutland. 

The Abells had a son, William, who was born on 30 June 1885 when the family were living at Matilda Street in central Sheffield. Both children were baptised at the Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul. By 1901 the Abell Family had moved to 25 Wadborough Road, Ecclesall, near the Botanical Gardens.

They moved to our area in the 1900s, presumably after father William retired. It would appear they initially lived at Grange Farm, at the village end of Dore Road, where they had a substantial amount of land including a plot facing on to The Green. The farm was offered for sale at auction in May 1906. The Abells moved to Holly Dene, now 104, Totley Brook Road until around 1910 when they moved into a new detached house called Melrose built next door at number 106. We know this from advertisements that they placed in local newspapers for the sale of eggs and pigs. 

Son William was not with them in 1911. He had become an engineer and was living in lodgings at 14 Bawtry Road, Tinsley. He appears to have been living in Morecambe when he married Lizzie Taylor at All Saints, Ecclesall, Sheffield on 16 November 1916. We haven't been able to find a military service record for him but that doesn't mean he did not serve during the war. Certainly his name is not on any of the rolls of honour in our local churches. William lived at 28 Woodholm Road, Ecclesall in 1939 when he was an engineer in a steel works. 

Edith and her parents continued to live at Melrose at least until 1917 but later moved to nearby 17 Chatsworth Road where they stayed for the rest of their lives. Father William died on 26 January 1935 aged 73. Mother Mary Ann died on 12 January 1951 aged 91 and finally Edith died on 3 December 1964 aged 77. Edith Abell never married. She was buried in the same grave as her parents at Dore Christ Church on 10 December 1964.

It seems most unlikely that we will ever know who wrote the postcard. If it was a sweetheart, they didn't marry. There's a possibility it might have been a cousin. There were Abells and Pridmores in Rotherham in the 1911 census but no obvious candidates. 

June 2020