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 | Page 1 - Minnie Frost James 1977 Letter
Family letter by Aunt Min, Minnie Alexandra (Frost) James (1902-2004), c1977. Pages 2-5 survive; page 1 and the last page are missing. Summary of this page (2 Nov 2026):
Her father's parents (the reader's great-great-grandparents Frost): she was a Somerset country woman; he came from Kent and, according to her father, was a ne'er-do-well whose family paid him to stay away: lazy, good-natured, weak and easily led. His wife brought up the large family. Her father (John Frost) left home early and was apprenticed to a tailoring firm in Bristol. He was treated so badly that at 17 or 18 he ran away to Newport, to a firm whose advertisement he had seen in a newspaper. He asked the way of a pretty girl with golden curls down her back, her mother (Minnie Parker). Minnie's mother pitied the lonely boy; they went to the same church, she invited him to Sunday lunch, and he became one of the family.
Records: John's parents were Andrew and Harriet Frost of Taunton. In 1881 John, 16, was an inmate of Kingswood Reformatory near Bristol, very probably the "apprenticeship" (inference). |
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| 2 |
 | Page 2 - Minnie Frost James 1977 Letter
Family letter by Aunt Min, Minnie Alexandra (Frost) James (1902-2004), c1977. Pages 2-5 survive; page 1 and the last page are missing. Summary of this page (2 Nov 2026):
Minnie Parker's mother's maiden name was MORGAN (Sarah Ann Morgan). She was said to descend from the old Princes of Wales and was proud of it; a forebear served under Nelson on the Victory, so that branch was called "the Victory Morgans". She had friends in landed and titled families but had married beneath her: they called in their carriages but had nothing to do with her husband Clement Parker, and dropped the family when she died in 1902. One of them, "Lady Lyons - or perhaps Lines", was godmother to Minnie. Most of this came from "Auntie Louisa, my mother's sister".
Records: Sarah Ann Parker's death is probably the one indexed Jul-Sep 1902, Axbridge (Weston-super-Mare), age 58. The noble connections are unsupported; her father was a collier. |
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 | Page 3 - Minnie Frost James 1977 Letter
Family letter by Aunt Min, Minnie Alexandra (Frost) James (1902-2004), c1977. Pages 2-5 survive; page 1 and the last page are missing. Summary of this page (2 Nov 2026):
Clement and Sarah had a large family, including twins who died in infancy. Girls: Minnie (the eldest), Louisa, Alice, Sarah and Gertrude. Boys: George and Alfred, and the twin sons. GEORGE was meant to be a teacher but stowed away on a ship to the West Indies, helped the captain in a mutiny and did well. He went to Ceylon and India, was librarian and secretary to a Maharajah, then joined the Indian Civil Service, became an engineer and helped build the Punjab canals. He married, had several children and died young, about 1906; his family went back to her people and contact was lost. ALFRED worked in London and had 9 children (5 boys, 4 girls); the family lost touch when they moved out of London.
Records: George married Gertrude Verschoyle Rose at Umballa in 1901, had three children 1902-05, and died at Tonk, Rajputana, on 2 May 1906, State Engineer, aged 31. |
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| 4 |
 | Page 4 - Minnie Frost James 1977 Letter
Family letter by Aunt Min, Minnie Alexandra (Frost) James (1902-2004), c1977. Pages 2-5 survive; page 1 and the last page are missing. Summary of this page (2 Nov 2026):
Cousin FRANK, now in Adelaide, was Auntie SARAH's only surviving child; she married an Irishman. Auntie LOU never married. Aunt GERTIE died tragically young, a talented musician and artist; the writer was "only about 4 or 5" (really nearly 8: Gertie died in 1910). Aunt ALICE married a schoolmaster, Jack Thomas, and had a son and two daughters. "Your grandfather Bailey... your Mum can tell you all she knows." The reader's grandmother spoke of visits to great-aunts who were Quakers in Weston-super-Mare, probably Clement Parker's aunts.
Records: Sarah's other child was probably Horace Parker Wilson, born and died 1912 in Birkenhead. |
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