MAY DRUSILLA JÄGER

Earliest memories

May Drusilla Jäger was born at Tuebrook, Liverpool, on the 30th May, 1870, the eldest child of Drusilla, a very beautiful young girl, the daughter of Amos George and Martha Morris of Horbling, Lincolnshire.

May was only four years old when her mother died. Her father, who was then about 29, was partner and manager of George Jäger & Son, Sugar Refiners of Burlington Street and Black Diamond Street, Liverpool. He had exceptional ability. He was the pride and mainstay of his father, George Jäger, who had founded the business in 1840 (?44) or shortly thereafter. Grandfather Jäger always spoke of his son with admiration, and throughout their joint lives they were always devoted to each other.

The business passed through many vicissitudes. On two occasions Grandfather found himself in difficulties and was temporarily unable to fulfil his liabilities; but on both of them he most honourably paid his creditors in full and steadfastly refused to take advantage of the law of bankruptcy. Father's genius for finance, and his practical skill and knowledge of the business of Sugar Refining, enabled them to recover from their difficulties: and under his management the business prospered to such an extent that, by the year 1880 or soon after, they bought a large refinery in Leith and operated it with great success for many years. Shortly after 1881, Grandfather, who now lived at Newhaven, near Edinburgh, retired, leaving Father to carry on both refineries in Liverpool and Leith. This, then was the background of May's early years.

After her mother's death, Father travelled for several months, in the Holy Land, in Egypt and the near East. On his return he married Georgiana, Drusilla's youngest sister, and, leaving Tuebrook, they went to live at Talbot House, Fairclough Lane, in Oxton. There was only the short length of Mount Pleasant which divided them from Poplar Road, where, in Hope Lodge, lived Grandfather and his four unmarried daughters and Agnes Briggs his unmarried niece who acted as his housekeeper, he having been long a widower.

At this time, May was a very attractive little girl with dark hair, grave thoughtful eyes and perfect features distinguished the perfect oval of her face. The portrait of her, sitting in a straight backed old-fashioned chair, shows not only a rare childish beauty but character, sweetness and gravity. In those days she would be much petted by her aunts: and the emotional feelings caused by the untimely loss of her mother would no doubt be communicated by those around her and have their sad influence on her. There was none of the light hearted almost frivolous attitude towards bereavement in those days, as there is now, doubtless to conceal the deeper feelings we all experience. Then, people allowed their emotions free play and were often too candid in expressing them. The mask of cheerfulness was seldom worn: for they had not learned their Shakespeare properly and failed perhaps to assume those virtues which they did not possess.

To the new home came two babies, George Harold at the beginning of 1877, and Frederick Percy in 1878 (he lived only 15 months, or maybe a little more). At the end of 1879 or the beginning of 1880 the little family moved to Nassau House in Beech Road (afterwards Birch Row), a large white-painted country house standing in a large garden with orchards and two fields, in all about 5 acres. Here were born Bertram Maurice [Tram] (Feb. 1880), Arthur Noel Richardson (Dec. 1881), Mary (Jan 1884) & Gwendolen Frieda Martha (Nov. 1886), a very happy family.

On Sunday after Church we used to go to dinner at Hope Lodge, where there was now a large gathering at the table. Martha Ann (Aunt Patty) had married Amos Burn the great Chess master, and they had two children, Elsie & Hilda. Mary (Aunt Polly) married Charles Page, whose children were Una and Max. Eleanor (Aunt Nellie) married Carl Probst and they had four children, Nella, William, Rudolph, and Marie. (At the 1914 war, Aunt Nellie, then a widow, changed the name to Burnett). Frances Catherine (Aunt Fanny), Agnes Briggs, Aunt Emily Morris (who lived with us at Nassau House) and, very often Cousin William Danson made up the sum of adults. Amid this company May & I were the only children. I remember the scene so well, though I could not have been much over three when Grandfather moved to Edinburgh.

It was certainly a large party, for whom Cousin Agnes used to cook so well, which sat around the long table in the dining room which looked out on to the lawn and pretty old world garden of Hope Lodge. Grandfather would say Grace, and his words are well worth recording and remembering:-

"We thank Thee Gracious Father for again providing for Our needs. Grant us Thy Blessing and Presence and pardon all our sins: for Jesus' sake. Amen."
I remember being puzzled at the word 'Presence': I used to think it had something to do with Christmas. At the end of dinner Grandfather would read a Psalm. Conversation was lively, and Grandfather's genial spirit and humour, and his wonderfully calm demeanour, exerted its beneficent influence on us all. If disputes or arguments arose they were always gently quelled by a quiet word or simply a look.

Grandfather always took a lot of notice of us children. He would dandle me on his knee to some old rollicking rhyming lines he had remembered from his youth and his own father David the soldier of George III, who died when Grandfather was 12 years old at Sommersdorf in Germany. The burden of the song was "aus und dorn" and that's all I remember of it. In Grandather's 'Life' he recalls how cast down he was when his father died: and how he was cheered by hearing, as it seemed to him, a Voice saying to him:-

"God will be your Father now."

Cousin Agnes, too, liked to have us running about the house and garden of Hope Lodge. She would call us in while she was cooking 'Uncle's' dinner and give us chipped potatoes.

Grandfather always had his meal alone in his easy chair beside the fire where had would be always reading - the Bible, mostly, or some old Sermons. His young days had been spent in the very strictest sect of the Baptists, and he thought it wrong to read fiction. He had many other very strict rules of conduct, yet, such was his charity and greatness of heart that he never scolded us: and even when he disapproved his reproach was of the gentlest.

About this time the gentle sweet and beautiful Aunt Polly died. She was a great favourite with all. May resembled her very closely in looks, and I think in character too. This was a heavy blow to everyone and cast a gloom on what had been such sunny surroundings. I remember Grandfather sitting with his weeping family in the breakfast room of Hope Lodge on the morning of her death. He sat so quiet as he said:-

"The Lord gave and the Lord taketh away".

Thus, you see, May's early childhood was shadowed by sorrows which she felt as keenly, and perhaps more vividly than any of her elders. But a life of much happiness and great usefulness was in store for her. At Nassau House she and I were companions, for, though she was my senior by more than six and a half years, I was promoted from the nursery at a very early age to have tea with May in the breakfast room. Of course, we were both too young to have late night dinner; but we were often shown off, as it were, in the drawing room to guests who had been invited to one of those formal feasts which were so popular in Victorian days, and which were a perennial anxiety to the young housewife. We used to watch Mother making pastry and jelly in jelly bags in the kitchen, where, too, I would love to play with the coffee grinding machine, and watch the mechanical jack or spit revolving in front of the great fire in the range with a large juicy joint hung on its bright steel hook.

May would have her friends to tea. The earliest of these was Edith Croft, who lived close by in Storeton Road, and a pretty brunette called Jessie Sprint. After tea, which was mainly white bread and butter, and damson or goosebery jam and perhaps radishes or cress from the garden, they would play games of hide and seek, and often a strange game, the name of which I have forgotten, in which a rug was spread over the backs of two chairs. One crouched under the rug holding a couple of pins or needles, while the other knelt on the chair and tried, as it were to play a tune on the top of the rug without pricking herself. It occurs to me that it is not altogether strange that this pastime has fallen into desuetude and well merited obscurity.

For a time, before we went to school, Aunt Emily used to give us lessons. One day, when we were busily engaged in a French lesson in the dining room, part of the decorative moulding of the ceiling, a heavy circular plaque, a sort of inverted finial, detached itself and fell with a violent dunt on the table between us. We were all lucky to escape - we laughed - and of course the lesson finished. Aunty, who had spent some time in Paris, of which she used to tell us many tales, was good at French, and gave us such a good grounding in that language, that when we went to our respective schools, we found ourselves much above average proficiency.

May went to Miss Gibson's in Palm Grove, a big house at the corner of Devonshire Road. There she met a host of friends and I think she was very happy. There is a picture of her and some of these friends in a cricket eleven: it is interesting in that it shows what good looking, and some really beautiful, girls there were in those days, and the quaint dresses they wore.

Sometime before then Grandfather and Aunt Fanny had been away on one of their numerous journeys, this time to Iceland; and they brought two fine grey Iceland ponies which Grandfather gave as presents to May and me. Father was very fond of horses. He was a splendid straight backed figure on horseback. And now we four, Father, Mother, May and I would go for long country rides along the lanes of Wirral, and sometimes as far as Hoylake, where it was great fun to gallop on the sands. We also used to ride Shaggy and his vicious little brother in the field, and I remember being thrown a complete somersault over the head of the latter.

Father sold that one, and May was promoted to riding Bob, the aristocratic horse with the dainty trot, so smooth and even that it felt more like sitting in an easy chair than trotting. Bob was a dark cigar brown in colour and was Father's favourite horse. Bruce the big Chestnut used to drive with Bob in a pair; and Mother & Father sometimes went driving tours in the phaeton.

We went often to North Wales for the summer holidays, and on one occasion Father took Mother, May and me for a two days drive to Llanberis and Beddgelert, where we stayed the night: and we climbed Snowdon. In those holidays, first at Llandudno, then at Llanfairfechan, Criccieth and Barmouth, we used often to go for very long walks over the mountains, sometimes doing as much as twenty miles in the day. No matter what the weather was like, or what little hardships we had to undergo, May was invariably cheerful and sweet tempered. Indeed, throughout the whole of her childhood - in very fact through the whole of her life - she never complained, never lost control of her temper, and was always calm, thoughtful, cheerful, and unselfish.

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