April Leopold Hynes kindly shared this wonderful photo saying, “This is the Blantyre Strang Family circa 1910. Thomas J. Strang with wife Margaret (Hill) with children Robert and Agnes. Mother is Mary Sufferine.”
I wanted to know a little more and like to add something to any old photo sent to me, so I delved into some other facts about these people. I’d say the picture is more around 1912, rather than 1910 April. Little Agnes Strang was born in 1910 in Coventry and she looks about 2 here. Robert is 2 years older and looks about 4 (b1908 in Blantyre). The family must have moved from Blantyre to Coventry between 1908 and 1910. They look dressed in their Sunday best and I think the house in the background was probably in their Coventry years. Its a brilliant photo and especially nice to see the fashions in such detail.
Sadly, when I looked at things a little more, I found out that little Agnes died four years later, aged 6. A third child Thomas John was born in 1916. Thomas John, who was the father of Margie Didgen, died in Italy on 14th October 1945 from a jeep accident. He is buried in a military cemetary in Nettuno, Italy.
In 1901 John F Hill (grandfather of Thomas John, Robert and Agnes) was a fireman for Priory Colliery. They lived at 5 Priory Row. I’ve marked his house in this old photo with a red dot, attached the ancestry for the people in this story and also attached a photo of their headstone.
