You don’t know what you don’t know until
someone tells you and then you realise that for all those years you never knew that you didn't know. Let me explain...
The title proper of my Cemetery Project is
Lives Behind the Stones. This was the original interest, before we started
filling in the Heritage Lottery Fund application. As we wrote down our plans we
realized that we needed first to catalogue the entire cemetery, set up a
database with basic information about all the graves etc. We have just about
done those things and so we’ve moved on to the most interesting part; finding
out about the lives behind the stones.
Some of the deceased have family still
living in the community and so, rather than researching files, folders and
internet sites, I’ve been visiting, chatting and gathering their stories
together. That was when I realized that I didn’t know what I didn’t know… but
now I do and, yes, I am going to share.
Before the war there was a street in
Leicester called Wharf Street. It was a busy shopping street full of character.
One of the shops belonged to a man called Sam Jacobs, the grandfather of a friend who is also a member of my project team, so I went to speak to my friend's father to find out more
about Sam Jacobs.
Sam Jacobs had a shop selling ladies
fashion wear. We talked a bit about the shop and about Wharf Street and then my
friend’s father became animated as he remembered that his father would get the
clothes altered for the customers by two sisters who lived in London. These
sisters also made dresses for his mother for special occasions. They must have
been very good dressmakers, I thought. My friend’s father continued,
“I was the one who was sent down to London.
I was only a lad. I had to take the dresses that needed altering and bring back
all the work they’d done. Then when war broke out,” he said, “They came to
Leicester to escape the bombs. They stayed here after the war was over and
carried on working for my father. They were two sisters, little ladies,
foreign, spoke Yiddish. Their names were…”
And then I stopped him because I knew what
their names were and I was right. They were good. They were my Grandma and my
Great Aunt. I talked about them here a few years ago, about their private
dressmaking workshop and the way I used to ‘help’ by picking up pins but I
never knew that they were doing business with someone from Leicester long
before war broke out. I never knew why my family chose Leicester when they
evacuated from London but now I do. They had business contacts here. It’s
amazing what you find out when you’re least expecting it.
On the left is a photograph of my Grandma Bessie and on the right is a photograph of my Great Auntie Alice. These were the two sisters who worked for Sam Jacobs all those many many years ago.
