In message <1mae45c3xktpp$.1grg0di10wrgf.dlg@40tude.net>, Charlie <plink.2RoyTubb@spamgourmet.com> writes: >On Mon, 02 Sep 2013 15:57:02 +0930, Anne Chambers wrote: > >> Charlie wrote: >> >>> My soldier had married my Aunt Mabel in September 1914. At about the same >>> time he voluteered for the 13th Battalion of the Essex regiment (West >>> Ham).. His will was made out and signed on 9th November 1915 and he left >>> everything to his mother, not his young (19 year old) wjfe. This strikes me >>> as odd, but I know from other information in the will that it's the right >>> man, What do others make of that? He would have had precious little to >>> bequeeth. >>> I did think that maybe it had been a hasty marriage he subsequently regretted (possibly, even, undertaken for carnal reasons by someone expecting to die soon), but ... >> >> Perhaps he thought his mother needed the money more, as his wife >>could go back to her parents if he died. Did ... does seem a kinder explanation. (Also the suggestion of to-mother having been made while single and not subsequently updated seems plausible: even if marriage invalidated the earlier will, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the will remained on file.) >> he have younger siblings still dependent and was his mother a widow ? >>Did war widows get an allowance/some >> other sort of payment in WW1 ? I'd been wondering about when war widows' support came in, I think as regards another thread (or possibly another part of this one). > >He did have younger (and older) siblings. His father was alive when he >married in 1914, but his employment, casual dock labourer, was certainly Did he (the soldier, not the docker father) have much to leave anyway? I was wondering whether it might relate to items of more sentimental than monetary value. (I appreciate that a simple will might not answer this.) >precarious. His wjfe, my aunt, did return to live with her parents for a (That's the second time you've spelt wife as wjfe; unusual!) >while, and their only child died early in 1915. Pretty tragic all round. [] >ago. I could write a book about the small mysteries in that family, Mabel >is just one item! I suspect most of us here could say that about at least one branch! > >Roy (or Charlie?) -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf ... so cracking a joke would be like farting in the Sistine Chapel. - Alison Graham, Radio Times 29 January-4 February 2011