William, my grandfather, and " the ring"
My paternal grandfather, William Murch Whelen, was a bigamist. Actually, he was a trigamist in that he had 3 wives simultaneously. None of them knew about each other.
He deserted Hylda, wife number 1, by never returning home from the trenches of WW1. He left her with a young son, and after several years of trying to locate him, she and her son emigrated to Australia.
He deserted Winifred, wife number 2, months before their child Christopher was born. Christopher never met his father. It is possible, they only married so that Winifred was not labelled as an unmarried mother. This was in 1927.
He didn't desert wife number 3, Queenie, after he married her in 1928. Queenie was my grandmother.
Queenie, my grandmother.
Queenie's son, my grandfather's 3rd son, was my father. None of the sons knew of each others existence, despite the younger 2 both living and working in London in the 1950s and 1960s.
Christopher..... the middle son......was a talented musician. He was Assistant Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, and later became the Musical Director at the Old Vic. He wrote music for TV, radio and for the cinema.
Christopher, known as Kit, was gay. His lifelong partner was another very talented man, named Dennis Andrews, who himself was a musical and theatre critic.
Kit and Dennis lived through " interesting times" for a gay couple.They met in 1948 and were together until Kit's death in 1993. Their theatrical , artistic and musical life may have made things easier, but for much of their life together, they were in a so called illegal relationship. Unfortunately Kit died before civil partnerships or gay marriage was a possibility.
My family history research led me to discover my grandfather's past and the story has featured in a much earlier blog posting. My grandfather died 9 years before my birth, my grandmother , my father, his two half brothers and their " wives" are also all dead. So, no one that my grandfather hurt is left alive.
I have been able to meet my cousins who share a grandfather with me. One of his other grandchildren lives in Australia, and one in New Zealand. I am now close to both of them, and to their families. We don't understand what our grandfather did, but we are all happy to have been able to piece together the story, and we care about each other.
Kit, however, did not have children. His family was Dennis. Kit died in 1993, before the deaths of his two half siblings and before I had pieced together the story of my trigamist grandfather.
However, I was lucky enough to meet Dennis a few years ago, and he generously shared information about my Uncle Kit as well as many photos and cds of Kit's musical compositions. He also took me out for a wonderful lunch.
Dennis died in September this year, after celebrating his 100th birthday just a few months before hand. He died at home, with friends, as he had wished.
I have received a wonderful gift from him. Kit's only possession that had belonged to his father, was a fob watch chain, with a dark green stone at one end. In 1960, when on holiday with Dennis, in Florence, he had the stone made into a ring, by a jeweller on the Ponte Vecchio.
Dennis left me the ring. When I met Dennis, he told me he would do this, but it was many years ago. I assumed it was just one of those things people said, but was long forgotten.
His executor found it in an envelope, with a note describing its origin, and exactly where it had been turned into a ring, with an indication that it should be sent to me, William's granddaughter, on his death. He had meticulously updated my addresses on the note, every time I moved home ( a couple of times since I met up with him).
It's a complicated story, but one I love to think about. William touched many lives and hurt some people along the way. However, his children and now his grandchildren and great grandchildren know about him and how he has connected our family.
Thanks to Dennis, I have the ring, another valued connection to our shared past.