Stan's Grandmother, Annie Lettice Spink
In Stan's letter to Grace written on 10 January, he says that in a recent letter his mother mentioned that "she and my Father had had to dash over to Hull to see my Grandmother on Christmas Day. Apparently she is very weak ..." Stan's maternal grandmother, Annie Lettice Spink, was born Annie Lettice Farr on 10 December, 1868, in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire. She was the third daughter of John Farr, an ironmonger, and his wife Kate (nee Turney). By 1891, when she was 23 years old, Annie had moved with her older sister, Nellie, to become an asylum attendant at the Hull Borough Lunatic Asylum in Willerby, near Hull. This may seem an unusual career choice for two young women until you know that, at that time, their father, John, had been for several years resident in the Three Counties Lunatic Asylum in Bedfordshire, suffering from insanity caused by syphilis. He died in November, 1891, of paralysis, caused by the syphilis, and pneumonia. It would seem...