Following on from this story, this grave reveals more secrets – this time, its connection to the parish church and to many other graves in the yard!
We last left this grave with the death of Ruth Hargreaves in February 1876, who died with her niece Sarah by her side. On Ruth’s death Sarah’s adopted household was now gone. First her sister Elizabeth, now Ruth…where would Sarah go? Thankfully for Sarah she already (we hope!) had an idea of where she would be going next. For the last few months of her spinsterhood she stayed at the house at Dobroyd, but on September 4th 1876 she traded it for a little house on Queen Street in Cobden when she married millwright John Greenwood.
John was Sarah’s age and had grown up at Millwood before moving down to the centre of Todmorden with his family. His father Enoch was a loom jobber, doing repairs and maintenance on power looms, so John’s mechanical bent makes sense. Sadly John’s very common name makes him hard to track in the newspapers but as far as we can tell he was a steady chap and he and Sarah settled into married life together well. He definitely was doing well for himself as in 1882 he was able to buy the back-to-back they were living in on Queen Street as well as the one on Prince Street that backed onto theirs for £250 total when they came up for auction. Good thing too, because by the time of the auction the couple had three daughters and two more would be on their way.
Edith and Bertha, their first two daughters, are buried elsewhere at Christ Church and have their own stories to tell; Edith at 8.2 and Bertha at V2.2. After them came Mary Elizabeth in early 1882, then Ruth Alice in 1885, and finally Annie in 1887. None of the three would marry, instead staying home with their parents and becoming dressmakers or fustian machinists. Yes, machinists – Annie might not have been a boy, but she had her father’s talent with mechanics. The family moved to 3 Victoria Road for a spell, leaving the cramped back to back terrace at Cobden behind. At least three of the daughters threw themselves into duties at Christ Church; Edith and Bertha became involved with the Married Women and Mary Elizabeth was a Sunday School teacher.
The 1910s brought sorrow for the family. There’s a long space between dates on this gravestone and it would be 38 years between Ruth’s burial and the next one. The next one was young Harold Ashworth, Bertha’s son with her husband Herbert. Harold was only five years old (or four, according to his death certificate) and died from enteric fever, aka typhoid. This grave was clearly a family grave, and now held three generation of Ratcliffes. This would continue when in 1917 his grandmother Sarah joined him. By this time the Greenwoods had moved to a larger house on Stansfield Street, and Sarah’s death left John with his three unmarried daughters, who were now supporting him due to his retirement from his job at Astin and Barker at Salford.
When John died in 1922 he left behind about £3000 to be shared out. Mary, Ruth and Annie were able to take their shares and live comfortably as long as they stuck together, and sticking together is what they did. They moved to Lime Avenue and on the 1939 Register all were retired, with Annie marked as incapacitated. It would be Mary who died first though, right at the end of that year. Her obituary notes even more accomplishments than the newspapers ever hinted at before; she really was dedicated to work outside of work.
Time kept passing. Edith and Bertha died, and it was just Ruth and Annie left. Ruth died in 1968, 90 years after the great-aunt she was named for. The “thank you” in the newspaper for those who helped came from Annie and “nieces and nephews”. Annie herself, despite being the incapacitated sister in 1939, was the last sister standing. When she died in 1974, aged 86 and with an estate worth £7400, probate went to the bank – there was no one left to administer anything.