Week 48 (Nov. 29-Dec. 5): Strength

 Week 48 (Nov. 29-Dec. 5): Strength

The “strength” of a Military wife.

Violetta Beatty Gifkins was the wife of my grand-uncle. This lady has been a puzzle over the years as she was known as “aunt beatty” and it was believed to have been her surname and she used it as didn’t like her first name. Even on photos she is listed as “beatty”. However, after going down the wrong line for a very long time and having her as Margaret Beattie married to Fred, it came to light via a professional genealogist that her name was Violetta Betty Gifkins and she was married to Fred’s brother Arthur who went under the name of Fred!!! For the purpose of this story I will refer to her as “beatty”.

Beatty was born 29th January 1915 in Lambeth to Francis Gifkins and his wife Mary Brown. She was the 3rd child and 3rd daughter they had out of 6 children. She was named after her fathers mother. 

The photo right is of Beatty and her husband Arthur in Nigeria.

On the 1939 census she is listed as single and a tailoress, she is living with her parents and also her “husband to be” Arthur Wood. I have no idea how they would have met or how he came to be living with her and her family, as his family were from Bradford west Yorkshire and moved to Peterborough Cambridgeshire, which is where he was born. Beatty and Arthur married October 1940 in Brentford, Middlesex, London.

Arthur was in the Navy and this meant that Beatty was a military wife. This can’t have been easy for her and she must have had great “strength”. Arthur was posted all over the world according to family stories and photos and Beatty was left at home for long periods on her own. However, I do know that she left her family in the UK and went on a boat to where her husband was stationed in Nigeria, Africa. It was here that she gave birth to their daughter Pauline in 1948. Again this shows her “strength” to give birth in a foreign country. From pictures in my possession Arthur and Beatty and their daughter set up home in Nigeria, there is photos of their house and garden, Beatty working with the local people, the local markets, some of the area around where they lived and others of the military wives and men having fun at a lake. The family moved to Iraq as well.

There are quite a few ship passenger lists showing Beatty and Pauline travelling to and from places, I’m guessing to return to see family members and then back to her husband. This must have been quite a task.

I am sure that she was a very “strong” lady to be able to support her husband and child away from her family, friends and loved ones back in the UK.

Beatty died in 1990 in France, I don’t know how long she had been there or even why she was there, i have found a will linked to a lady of the same name and date of death but in a place in the UK, so it is even more confusing.

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