Eulogy 21 - Emily Matilda Chaplin (1853-1867)

 

OVERLOOKED ANCESTORS

(Eulogy written and published on Facebook on 3rd January 2021 for
Emily Matilda Chaplin (1853-1867) –
a paternal 2nd Great Aunt of Warren Maloney)

In researching Ancestors, you tend to be drawn to the lives of those who lived full and eventful lives. I have to condition that tendency often with thinking of the others.

One of those was Emily Matilda Chaplin born today (3/1) in 1853. Emily lived only 14 years, all of them with 8 older siblings and 1 younger one at the family home in Black Brush, Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania). 

We know little of her life, except that her death notice suggests a long illness. 

She was alive in the years when Tasmania was named, the Victorian Gold Rush was at its height, the Eureka Stockade Battle occurred, the Crimean War was fought and Florence Nightingale started modern Nursing, Prince Albert died leaving Queen Victoria a grieving Widow, and so it goes! 

She probably knew little of all of that. But she would have known that 2 of her siblings had already died, and that her Mother, Margaret, endured a stillborn birth at the family home when Emily was aged 9.

Emily's life does not make more than a sentence or two in the Ancestral books. But fortunately, we have this photo of Emily and she was our paternal 2nd great aunt.

The photograph, taken with the exciting new technology, is dated in the year that she died - 1867.

Now that is another thing to remember!



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