Host Andrew Martin welcomes to this 3rd episode of Season Ten, a genealogy obsessed not-so-retired tech-nerd and award-winning blogger, who is perhaps best known to many listeners by her nom-de-plume – it’s DearMYRTLE!
Listen to the episode
S10EP03 – 'The Kindly' with DearMYRTLE – The Family Histories Podcast
Also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, and others…
The Life Story – Myrtle Eliza Player Severinson
Myrt has chosen to tell the life story of her namesake, and grandmother, who was born Myrtle Eliza Weiser in May 1895, in Salt Lake City in Utah, USA.
Grandmother Myrtle heads to a strict nursing school. She then gets a job for US $1 a week as a postpartum nurse – involving caring for infants and doing laundry. Eventually, she meets her would-be husband, whom she married in Idaho in 1917.
Myrtle gives birth to her first child amidst the Great Influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 (often called ‘Spanish Flu’). DearMyrtle reflects on the experiences that her grandmother must have had as young mother and trained nurse during that flu epidemic, and relates it to her own experience during the Covid-19 pandemic that swept the world in 2020.
A family rumour surrounds the reason why Myrtle and her husband moved to Seattle, and it’s here that her kindly ways emerge again. She served as a nurse during World War Two, giving inoculations to servicemen on the waterfront and would bring an occasional young recruit home to have dinner with the family. She also campaigned for children to have shoes.
Myrt’s fond memories of her beloved grandmother beam from this episode, and these have clearly shaped her own life.
The Brick Wall – Hannah Hudson
It’s a brick wall in Berkshire, UK that has Myrt asking for help – in particular, the village of Bisham – seeing Hannah Hudson and her husband Benjamin Sanders take their daughter Zillah for baptism in 1788.
Myrt has searched for Hannah’s origins – checking the parish registers for marriages and baptisms, but she can’t find Hannah Hudson’s parents, nor her marriage to Benjamin Sanders.
A record on FamilySearch gives a baptism of a Hannah Hudson of John and Anne Hudson but in Sunninghill, Berkshire, but there’s not enough evidence yet to connect her Hudsons to these – as there’s many other Hudson name-bearers in the surrounding area.
- Who are Hannah Hudson’s parents?
- When/where was she born?
If you think that you can help Myrt, you can message her via her DearMYRTLE Substack page, or alternatively via the email she gives in the episode. You can always send us a message, and we’ll pass it on to her.
In the meantime, Myrt accepts Andrew’s offer of help, but maybe she knows more than he does…
Episode Credits
- Andrew Martin – Host and Producer
- DearMYRTLE – Guest
- John Spike – Sándor Petőfi