Mon. Sept 15, 2008 Our Cradley Miracle

Tonight we are in a very cute cottage on The Hermitage Farm in Froghall, Staffordshire. (www.hermitagefarm.co.uk)It’s a real working farm, but they have taken a big, long barn and converted it into 3 or 4 cottages side by side, with a glass front door and small entranceway. We’ve even got a small clothes washer in the kitchen. Only thing we don’t have is a dishwasher – I actually had to wash dishes by hand! Horrors! Each of our rooms has its own small shower and toilet in a little tiny bathroom and the washbasin is out in the main bedroom in a corner. Mom and I have the room with 2 twin size beds and Pam and Roger have a double bed with bunkbeds in the corner. I love this place – and we got here just as it got dark, so we haven’t really got a good look at the outside yet. As I got out of the car I was greeted by an orange cat, and when I petted him/her, he immediately started loving up to me, rubbing against my legs and falling down at my feet. He was funny. I can hardly wait for daylight, so I can see what everything looks like. I did get a really fast look at an absolute beautiful view from the farmhouse/parking area – I’ll be sure to get some pictures to show you.

Anyway, about our travels today. We’ve had a very full day, mostly just driving. We took a little longer route than we could have so we could detour and go through Herefordshire, where Mary Ann Gittens (married to John Galbraith) came from. We drove up through Gloucester (pronounced Glosster), then went to Worcester (pronounced Wooster) then turned west and went to Cradley where the Gittins’ or Gittens’ are supposed to be buried, (didn’t find any). We went to Ridgeway Cross where Mary Ann Gittens was born, and to Bishops Frome where her father and grandfather were born. We even found a little place called Much Cowarne, the birthplace of Elizabeth Gwillim, married to Timothy Gittins Sr.

We had a wonderful experience today, right at our first stop in Cradley. All of these areas are absolutely beautiful, and they’re very hilly – you go up and down hills everywhere, and they’re quite steep. We drove through an area, thought we had gone the wrong way, and Pam found a spot to turn around to go back another way. Just as she pulled off, we found that she’d pulled off in the entrance to the church – called the St. James the Great Church of Cradley. We jumped out for a really quick look – we had a long way to drive today, and didn’t want to spend too much time in one place. Mom and I hurried on ahead, and took pictures of the front of the church, and then walked up to the entrance. As Mom walked up, a man appeared and welcomed her, and said, “Come on in – where are you from?” Mom explained that she was from America, that she had ancestors from Cradley and was checking out the areas they were from. He asked what the family name was, took Mom straight back to the back room of the church, and proceeded to pull out an old record book to see if he could find any names for her. Unfortunately, the book was from just after the time our Gittens would have left, (earlier ones are in the Records Office) but there were still many Gittins or Gittens in the book for deaths, etc. mostly children – one 2 months, another 6 years old. He told us there was a Gittens lady who just passed away a few months ago, who was the last of the family as far as he knew, and she was LDS. He told us there was quite a group of LDS people there in the area that stayed and grew. He also told us that a lady there in the area had written a history of Cradley, and that it was available at the village shop. He was wonderful! We went down the lane a little, stopped at what we figured must be the village shop. It was just big enough to come in, there was a row of shelves down the middle of the shop, so if you turned to your left you could walk down the end, where a little counter said it was a post office, and then come up the other side to the counter. We couldn’t see the history of the town, so Mom asked the lady at the counter. She said they were usually out on a shelf, but there weren’t any, so she went in the back to see if there were more. It took her a very long time, and Mom was getting nervous, Roger was betting that there weren’t any more, and suddenly the lady came out with this wonderful hardback book in her hand. Mom was so excited!

You have to understand what a miracle this was – we very rarely ever see anyone else at the churches when we go there, so to have this man there was very rare. We don’t know if he was the vicar or the church warden, but he had access to the back room and knew a whole lot, and then knew there was this history of the area written. And then, we WERE able to get a copy of the book, ONLY because we knew enough to ask for it because of the guy at the church. I’ve looked through it briefly – it has one chapter about the Mormons in the area, about Wilford Woodruff and Brigham Young both having been there preaching and baptizing, and about how those who joined the church were treated when they chose to leave the Church of England. There are personal stories told by people who had lived in the area, telling about going to school and working and all kinds of things about the area. I don’t know if any of our family is mentioned yet, but the whole thing is such a wonderful glimpse into what our ancestors’ lives must have been like! It’s a huge treasure!

We didn’t spend a lot of time in the other villages – we drove in, looked around and talked about who lived there or was born there, looked at the church and the old buildings, and then went on. In the Much Cowarne church there is an effigy, or statue, of Grimbald de Pauncefort and his wife Constantia. He was the knight of the manor at the time – took part in the crusades, etc. Bishop’s Frome had one of just a knight – they assume by is surcoat and uniform that he was a Knight Templar. These things are so OLD! It’s a beautiful area – I don’t know if I would have been able to leave it if I had joined the church while living here. It’s up and down hills but it’s beautiful farm country, beautiful and green. Many of the roads we’ve driving on today were one-lane roads – and if you meet another car coming at you, one of you pulls off the road so the other can pass or has to back up until the road is wide enough to pull off. A little nerve wracking to those of us who are used to the wide streets in America. And Mom and I are just a little gun-shy after the accident the other day – every time Pam has to use the brakes suddenly we brace for an impact!

We also drove through Stoke Upon Trent to get out here to our cottage. It’s now a huge city as far as we can see. (that’s the area where Richard Clay and Elizabeth Taylor were married in 1839, so we assume the Clays were around there somewhere) We are in the middle of Staffordshire, and Mom is so excited to be here she can hardly stand it. I think now that the jet lag is wearing off she’s realizing where she is. We’re also in the middle of the pottery area – where all the famous potteries are made. Royal Stafford, Spode, Wedgwood – those are the ones I recognize. Hopefully, we’ll have time to check those places out too in the next 3 days that we’re here, as well as churches and graveyards!

I wish you were getting to read this today – I don’t have internet access here at our cottage, so I don’t know when I’ll get to actually put this on the blog. It’s pretty fun to know that I’ve been able to share our trip with you as we do it. Haven’t had any comments from my sons. Jessica – would you check on them and make sure they’re alive? Make sure they know their mother is in another country???