The Seeds of Marital Discord
This difference in background provided a seed bed for marital discord that was watered by the animosity between the respective mothers in law. Another source of contention was faith. Mother attended church assiduously. Father born a Catholic appears to have let his lapse. Mother’s church attendance was to our family’s detriment for it meant she was always at church rather than at her home attending to father’s and our needs. A telling illustration of the divide between mother and father and their families were the Sunday visits traveling by tram to the respective grandmothers. Mother took us one week to her mother, and father did the next to his. Grandmother Sullivan dressed in black entertained us to a delicate tea served by a maid in style in their splendid house. Grandfather and grandmother Harlow in a clean polished and scrubbed house on the other side of the city provided us with a good substantial and satisfying high tea. I always enjoyed the latter visits more.
Lord Street, Liverpool, around 1900, in the days of my grand parents, and the childhood of mother and father.
Father’s Family After
Father’s brother Harry was an engineer, he married Joan in late life, she had been a hospital matron and was from Wales, and they had a son Steven with whom I have lost touch. His sister Lucy remained a spinster, and on retirement went to India and entered a religious sect. Both were kind to us children.
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