There were various twists and turns to my maternal great grandparents’ early lives before they settled in Sandy, Bedfordshire, in the 1890s and raised their family of eight children there. My grandmother didn’t talk about them much, so it wasn’t until online newspapers revealed the sad stories of their deaths, two weeks apart in February 1940, that I found out about the last weeks of their lives. This is Alice’s final story.

“In failing health for some years”

Born Alice Cade, my great grandmother was born in Gamlingay, Cambridgeshire, in 1872. From census records, it seems she spent time with other family members after her mother’s death, which occurred when she was seven years old. Official records provide a paper-trail of dates and places of her marriage, in Sandy, in 1893, the births of her eight children, including my grandmother Elizabeth Sarah Fage, and her long residence with her family, at 14 Longfield Road, Sandy. But I knew very little else about her until newspaper reports of her death and, more so, those of her widower two weeks later.

These photos were passed on to me by my grandmother, and look like they were taken in the 1920s. They have been enhanced at MyHeritage to try to make them clearer. I particularly like her flamboyant hat in the photo on the left. I don’t know who the younger woman in the photo is, but the one on the right shows her with her husband William John Fage.

On 29 September 1939, she is listed in The 1939 Register at 14 Longfield Road, Sandy, with her husband and evacuee grandchildren; her married daughter Violet Emma Francis was living a few doors away. Later newspaper reports suggest that she was already suffering from ill-health, and barely five months later, she was dead.

Her death certificate shows that Alice Fage, wife of William John Fage, Farm Labourer, died on 12 February 1940, at home, aged 67 years. The main cause of death is Uraemia, followed by Chronic Interstitial nephritis. She was also suffering from Bronchitis. In essence, she was suffering from a urine and kidney infection which caused swelling around her kidneys, and ultimately, kidney failure. Nephritis also causes breathlessness, which would have been made worse by chronic Bronchitis. She would no doubt have been in some pain, discomfort and distress in the period before her death.

Extract from death certificate for Alice Fage (GRO)

Her husband of 47 years was present at the death and was the one who informed the Registrar the day after it occurred. Four days later, The Biggleswade Chronicle of 16 February announced her death, stating that she had “been in failing health for some years”. The small article incorrectly gives her age as 47, but correctly notes that she leaves a husband and seven children, and added that her funeral was to take place the next day, 17 February.

The funeral and flowers

Her funeral at Sandy’s parish church and burial in the local cemetery were fully covered in the same newspaper on 23 February (below):

Extracts from The Biggleswade Chronicle, 23 February 1940 (British Newspaper Archive, FindMyPast)

The church must have been awash with flowers, given the number of wreaths and other tributes mentioned. Our paternal great grandmother Lavinia Brown is mentioned as “Veeny” on the tribute from William John Fage, “her devoted husband”. My Mum, Noreen Brown, who was living with her Aunty Vera at the time, aged 10, is mentioned along with her cousins Malcolm Whiteman and Robin Whiteman, as ‘Noren’. She was perhaps too young to attend, but her older sister Vera Brown is listed amongst the mourners (“Miss V Brown, granddaughter”); she would have been 13 years old.

Alice’s last illness and death must have been a cause of deep grief in the family, and not least to her widower. Reports of his own death in a tragic accident just two weeks after Alice died and the subsequent inquest carried hints that he may still have been distracted by grief at the time. But that’s another story.

As late as the 1960s, and perhaps beyond, their surviving family posted In Memoriam notices to their parents in local newspapers, as the selection below shows:

In Memoriam notices from The Biggleswade Chronicle. L-R: 1942; 1953 and 1963.
British Newspaper Archive at FindMyPast

My grandmother Elizabeth Sarah Brown is variously shown as ‘Lizzie and Family, Chadwell St Mary’s’, ‘Beth, Horace, Louie, Albert (Gray’s, Essex)’ and ‘Beth, Horace, London’. The third notice also relates to William and Alice Fage’s son, Albert, who died in 1961.