Jonah sat with his head in his hands. He had no idea how he was to continue. It was bad enough that young Sarah and George had to die but why did God have to take his Henney as well? How could he do it all raise the remaining children and work?
“Dad do you want a cup of tea?” asked Catherine surprising him out of his thoughts.
Looking up, Jonah replied, “Yes, please.” As he watched Catherine boil the water he knew he couldn’t let his three remaining children down. Henney would be furious with him if they ended up in the poorhouse. Here was Catherine, just a child, who was taking care of him. As if to emphasise the fact she started preparing porridge for breakfast for the four of them. Since Henney had died three weeks ago Catherine had taken on all the household jobs and here he was moping and feeling sorry for himself. The children had lost as much as he had, and it was time he picked himself up and cared for them.
As if on cue, Harriet started hollering from her crib. “I’ll get her dad,” said Catherine wiping her hands on a tea towel.
“No darling, you keep going with the porridge, I’ll go see to her and get Aaron up as well,” said Jonah as he stood up to head into the bedroom.
Catherine looked after her father with a tear in her eye. Finally, she thought, dad is back.
Another story about Jonah Walker but from a slightly different angle than “The Census Collector“. Jonah and Henney were my second great grandparents, young Aaron my great-grandfather. This scene is pure speculation as after years of searching I have not been able to find evidence of what happened to Henney, Sarah, and George. They existed on the 1861 England Census but were gone by the 1871 one. It is all speculative that they died, however, given the time period, it would not be unheard of to lose this many family members to illness. For some reason, this couple keeps pulling me back in as I try to search what happened to the family.
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Hey I love the story, and I love the fact that is about your grandparents and not just something made up, I’m a sucker for those 🙂 Please keep updating the story as I am hooked and NEED to know what is going to happen 🙂 I am an artist too so I am drawn to this things like crazy!
Love the style and the prose, keep it up!!!
Tomas
Thank you Tomas. I really love the fact that I was taught this skill of using my family history to write short stories about my ancestors. It is good to use my imagination to think what might have been going on in an ancestors live at a given point in time based on historical documents. I hope you enjoy reading the other stories on my site.
Megan
Hey I love the story, and I love the fact that is about your grandparents and not just something made up, I’m a sucker for those
Thank you. I like putting a human element to the documentation I’ve found and writing little fictional stories based on my families is very rewarding. I am glad you enjoyed it. I hope you look out for the other ones on here and enjoy them as much.