My great grandparents in England were Luther Isaacs and Emily Williams. They were married in Oldland, Gloucestershire in 1894, and later on had two sons, one of whom was my Pop who later came to Australia. From the stories I’ve been told, Luther and Emily had quite different personalities. 

Luther was a bit of a man’s man. His father was one of the Kingswood miners, who were a tough breed. He’d had a minimal education and worked as a farm labourer by day. He was also a member of the local chapter of Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes, which my Pop referred to as “The Boozy Buffs”, because he’d get together Emily’s cousin Harold and some other men at the Lodge and drink til they were rowdy. 

Emily on the other hand was a good Christian woman. She was well known to care for others in the community who weren’t well or had some kind of disability. She was considered to be an unconventional sort of woman. She was always on the hunt for a good deal on the rent, and often Luther would come home in the evening to find Emily had moved house during the day to another house with cheaper rent.

Due to always being in a rush to take food to someone who was ill or who needed help, she would often forget her hat and go out with her apron still on. In particular, she took one little woman from the village under her wing, who was deaf and mute and who had no one to care for her, bringing her to share time with her family in her own home. 

In her older years, Emily herself was bedridden. She had chronic pain in her legs, which swelled. Her daughter in law, my grandmother Florence, would stay with her long into the night when she couldn’t sleep. My father remembers many nights when his mother would come home late after sitting with Emily until she finally fell asleep. 

Wanting to spend time with his wife during these painful years, Luther learned to read. He made quite a change in his life, choosing to give up his drunken ways and learning to read passages from the bible to read to keep Emily company on those long nights when she was unable to sleep. 

Emily passed away in July of 1952, just months after her son Albert, my Pop, moved with his family to Australia. Luther passed away soon after in December 1952. My aunt always said that he passed away from the cold that year, insisting on smoking outside and developing a chest infection. But I have to wonder if he missed his Emily so much he couldn’t live without her.