1925 -
The remainder of Gwen's Common-Place Book consists of a few family notices. Her singing career seems to have ended in the early 1920s and thereafter the Book was left largely unused. On 22nd July 1935 her mother-in-law died, aged 81. Curiously, the Book contains no cuttings from any deaths in her own side of the family, the Watsons. Frances Elizabeth Hoole (née Willett) came from Aberdeen where her father was Captain Joseph Willett, a ship's captain. Interestingly, she had been a music teacher and would therefore have had at least music as an interest in common with Gwen.
Just under a year later Gwen's father-in-law also died, aged 85. By profession a doctor, he was an incredibly philanthropic, generous man: "He was fond of celebrating such occasions as his birthday, or Christmas time, by inviting a large number of poor children to his home and treating them to a good afternoon feast. He retired from the medical profession about three or four years ago, from which time onwards he placed his services without fee at the disposal of the poor people." As recorded in the second article below, he was the son of one of the 1820 Settlers in that his father was James Cotterell Hoole who was four years old when he came out on the Chapman with his father, James Hoole.
Next in the book come a pair of notices reflecting the pride Gwen took in her daughter, Stella, who in April 1938 passed with honours in the South African Medical Council's Preliminary Examination in Anatomy and Physiology and First Aid.
Then in 1948 we have the announcements pertaining to Stella's marriage, the first under the heading Fiancailles. It is curious that there is nothing pertaining to the marriages of the two sons, Harold and Eric.
Arthur Francis Hoole, Gwen's husband, died on 4th January 1954. They had divorced a number of years earlier when Gwen decided to leave the Cape and settle in Johannesburg to be near her two surviving children. The notices are from Stella and her family, Eric and his family, and from Sheila, Harold's daughter. Sheila would have been four years old when her parents divorced and shortly after that Harold took his own life; she would have been twelve when her grandfather died, so the notice from her would almost certainly have been posted by Stella or Eric.
The final notice in the Common-Place Book is the death of Gwen herself on 8th September 1976, aged 86. At the time the Common-Place Book was in my mother's care, and it is in her handwriting that the date of the death is recorded.
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