As always, the stories we tell aren’t always just of those buried here. There’s also those who might be buried here but aren’t named, and those who were left behind.
This story starts with Edmund Mitchell, who was born in February 1810 at Lower Laithe to John and an unknown Mrs. Mitchell. Shore Baptist’s baptism register didn’t bother recording her name for some reason. He was the youngest of four children and while John was a mason, Edmund grew up to become a bobbin turner. Bobbin making could be lucrative; just ask Lawrence Wilson! In fact Edmund could have easily done so since Lawrence Wilson was, in the 1820s, the tenant at Pudsey Mill, making bobbins. Later the mill would be run by John Helliwell and Parker Astin, whose partnership dissolved in 1834. At what point Helliwell and Edmund joined forces is unknown to this researcher but by 1842 they were a business item at the mill.
Edmund meanwhile had married Elizabeth Healey in Manchester in 1838. Elizabeth was a good match for this up and coming manufacturer, as her father Robert was a woollen manufacturer. The Healeys lived in Smallbridge and Elizabeth was also one of several children. She was, in her core though, a Tod lass – her parents Robert and Mary (Howard) had gotten married at St. Mary’s in 1806 and were Todmorden residents at that time! What’s more, they were Quakers, and so Elizabeth also grew up in a non-conformist background. Robert Healey made the move from wool to cotton in 1832 but by 1838 was having a bit of bankruptcy trouble. This didn’t stop him seeing his daughter married at Manchester Cathedral and it certainly didn’t impact her marriage options. Edmund would have been considered a good catch. The marriage was witnessed by two of Elizabeth’s siblings, Sarah and John.
The Healeys stayed in Rochdale, and the Mitchells stayed in Todmorden. Edmund and Elizabeth had four children: Eliza in 1840, Lucy (or Lucey) in 1843, Mary Ellen in 1844, and John Healey in 1849. The latter two children never had a chance to meet Lucey, as her name is spelled on the stone here, as she died just before Mary Ellen’s birth. The next death in the family was Edmund’s, in 1849. He lived to see John’s birth in March of that year, but died in April. Poor Elizabeth had one more loss that year to suffer; little John died in August. He’s buried at Christ Church but curiously not here, at least not that we can tell. It would be strange for him to be left off the stone but that seems to be the issue. Was it about money? Unlikely, because Edmund didn’t die poor.
A brief sidetrack here, now, because of an unfortunate incident which the couple, especially Elizabeth, probably wished they could forget. A story ran in a number of regional newspapers in 1847 about Elizabeth being tricked by a “planet-ruler”, ie. fortuneteller, from Frieldhurst named Holgate who she went to for help after one of her children had burned themselves on a stove.
Good of the newspapers to make sure that if locals wanted to get scammed, that Holgate’s market day was Sunday…anyway.
Edmund will have left some money but it was still a hard business being a widow with young children. Many remarried as soon as they could, or moved to were family could help out. The latter was not yet an option for Elizabeth, possibly because her parents had died earlier that decade. However she did have a card up her sleeve: linens. In 1851 was running a linen drapery business, and was employing a female servant to help with either the business or the two girls. They had moved down to Fiddler’s Well before Lucey’s death and Elizabeth seems to have run her business from their home. Come 1861 and the family had move again, now down to Canteen, and Elizabeth had a second source of income as the local postmistress. This was definitely a boon for the family as mail was becoming very big business indeed. Post offices were dotted around the district and the responsibility was big. She still carried on her business though and both Eliza and Mary Ellen were working as her assistants. There was no longer a servant but the girls were old enough to pull their own weight now.
In 1867 Eliza died suddenly, a member of the “27 Club” through no fault of her own. She had been suffering from liver disease for a while and her end sounds very painful, with swelling of her legs and “bilious diarrhoea”. Elizabeth and Mary Ellen had had enough sad memories from Todmorden now, and after burying Eliza with her sister and father (and maybe brother?), the two left for Blackburn and then Preston. Elizabeth had sufficient funds to retire on, and Mary Ellen did not have to work, and they had a servant again, so they must have managed their money well and had a successful business.
Elizabeth died in Preston in 1873. Mary Ellen married a year later and died in London in 1903, and neither seems to have ever returned to Todmorden.