Mary Ann Britland knew what she wanted, and how she was going to get it. She worked all day in a factory and moonlighted as a barmaid because she wanted to provide for her two daughters. She married Thomas Britland, a domestic servant, because she wanted a man who knew his way around a dish or two. And at the age of 39 she wanted her next door neighbour, Thomas Dixon. Unfortunately, she already had a husband and Thomas already had a wife.
Christa loved a good funeral. They brought family and friends together, the food was always delicious and plentiful, and best of all, black was such a slimming color. It was a nice feeling, too, when the guest of honour at such an event wasn’t someone Christa had particularly cared much for.
None of Theresa’s children escaped her ‘teachings’. However, her attention was centred mostly on her older daughters, Sheila and Suesan. She didn’t like how pretty they were getting. She didn’t like how much attention this beauty might attract. Attention that might be diverted away from her. Theresa didn’t like that. Not one bit.
Surviving childhood was an achievement in itself in the early 1900s. Any number of illnesses periodically threatened to snatch away little ones at random. Parisian Jeanne Weber knew this well. A couple of these random illnesses had already taken her two youngest children by early 1905.
Marie loved shopping. She had been brought up by parents who both worked long hours and they saw new clothes, toys and other niceties as a suitable replacement for hugs and boundaries. She grew up believing that shopping solved everything.
