Elsie Burgess & Arthur John Harding

[Phoenix]

I only knew Elsie after she had retired as a cashier, when she was housekeeper to her widowed brother-in-law.

Her family moved from Hartlepool to Erith when she was small. She was the youngest of the family and married Arthur 22 March 1913.

Arthur died 12th November 1918. A fortnight away from her 29th birthday, she applied for her widow's pension.

Elsie survived her siblings and her two nieces. We continued to exchange Christmas cards after we moved away and she lived to celebrate her hundredth birthday.

We never met her nephew or nieces. As he may have inherited her genes and still be alive, I am not posting details of her extended family.

Seventy one years a war widow. The sad thing is that I don't believe that this would have been a record.

[kiterunner]

Are you trying to find out something in particular about them, Phoenix?

[Phoenix]

More, I'm wondering if anyone knows of any women with so long a widowhood. As a child, Elsie already seemed as old as the hills to me, but she lived another twenty years after we moved.

[kiterunner]

There's one in my tree who was a widow for about 55 years, but I don't think I have one as long as 71.

[Merry]

I've got a couple of widows on my tree who died around 55 years after their husbands, but none longer. A couple more ladies who would have managed over 60 years if they hadn't remarried. None of these anything to do with WW1 though.