Allen
Wedding photo 1919
My earliest recollection of Granny and Granda Allen is after we came to Clare, 1951. No memory of them whatsoever prior to that and yet I do have a few memories of my earliest days in Moneymore! Did I never see them before 1951??….more detail in my personal story.
They had 2 dogs. Don was an old collie and they had him before Tiny, a fawn coloured terrier. I remember these dogs in the late 1950’s. Don died and around the time I started Cookstown High School 1958. It’s Tiny I have most memories of. How he reacted at noon each day when the Bacon Factory steam horn sounded. He would start walking towards the factory, up the lane towards the water tanks. Within a few minutes Granda would appear and Tiny increased tempo to a sprint until he met Granda! Then in the late afternoon, around 5 o’clock, when Granny would rinse the tea pot, (into the hedge at the factory field, just beside where they had their outside water tap) Tiny would repeat the procedure and make his way towards the tanks….and guess what?...off he bound when Granda appeared.
On one occasion, when sister Yvonne was 7 years old, she too ran to meet Granda to tell him that Matt Busby was going the survive the aircrash!! Granda had NOT a clue what she was talking about! (Matt Busby was the Manchester United manager and was one of the casualties in the Munich aircrash, where over 20 players, staff and journalists were killed, after a match against Red Star Belgrade, February 1958).
You can read from other pages more background details about the Allen’s. However in the following text I shall endeavour to give as much information about Granda and Granny Allen as is available through research via the internet and what I’ve gleaned from my conversations with Dad and other family members. My second cousin Raymond Millar, grandson of Elizabeth Millar (nee Allen, ie Granda Allen’s sister!) has also contributed with some useful information.
Granda Allen was born 1 April 1898. His mother, Susanna died 6 June 1907 (35 years) and just 3 days previously, 3 June, their daughter of 15, Maggie, died as well. Both from that dreaded disease TB….and just a year later, 1908, his father Sam died (42 years) also of TB.
At a guess the date ca 1900- Unfortunately no photos of Susanna
This left the family orphaned…
Bill (Willy) was just 2 (emigrated to Canada in the 1920’s) Mary was 4 (emigrated to the US/Canada, just after WW1), Nancy was 9. I've had no initial records on her....however in the Spring of 2013, cousin Raymond Millar, mentioned several times previously, and in other articles, sent me a photo of Nancy, who was living in the USA/Canada. This photo showed her with Mary Allen (mentioned above) married to James Colville. Annabelle 14 ,married John McGahan, Cookstown and “disappeared" from the family circle, because this was a mixed marriage....meaning that she married a Roman Catholic. Elizabeth/Lizzie was 17 years old.
As I’ve understood from family sources, this Elizabeth b 1891, aunt Lizzie as I knew her, Raymond and David Millar’s grandmother, became a mother figure for Granda, although he lived with different members of the family connection. According to the 1911 Census some of the children were living with the James Ross family.
CENSUS LINK'S under navigation heading "Background".
See his photo in Cranny School 1910, when he was 10 years old. You will also see Mary and Annie (Annabelle) in the same photograph.
http://www.myheritage.com/site-photo-albums-34307711/allencookstownmoneymoreirelandsweden
There is a blood relationship between the two family lineages ie Ross’s (Granda Allen’s mother, Susanna Ross) and Smyth’s (Granny Allen’s mother was Mary Jane Cooke, married to Robert Smyth). That relationship will be described a little later in this passage.
See the following transcript of a "love letter" written by Robert to Mary Jane, after she had arrived in America! This was kept in a wallet by my Granda Allen and then my Dad.....hence the poor quality of the original, which comes at the end of the transcribed version......
Transcript of letter given to me by Dad in the 1990’s…….and putting it into our family context!
Our great grandfather ROBERT SMYTH wrote a “love” letter to the lady who was to become our great grandmother MARY JANE COOKE, after she had travelled to America. (What was her/his/their intention?....my remarks!) They later became Granny Allen’s (Violet Smyth) parents (1900-1976). Mary Jane worked in service at Springhill House, 
where the Lenox-where the landed gentry Conyngham family resided…..Robert & other lads would visit the river in the townland of Ballindrum (a short distance down hill from Springhill House) on Sundays, where the Springhill maids and service staff would spend some free time by the river bank….as told to me by Dad in the 1990’s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lenox-Conyngham
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springhill_House
Putting this information into a family context……..There was a connection between the Lenox-Conyngham and the Staples family of Lissan House through marriage.
It was Sir Thomas Staples who was Landlord for SAMUEL ALLEN (dob early 1800's, possibly 1790's?), my great great great grandfather! He ( his son Samuel JOHN dob 1836, possibly took on that same lease) leased 40 acres at Tintagh, in the Loughinsholin Barony, the upper Lissan Parish, Co Tyrone. This was researched and found in the Griffiths Land Registry, 1859.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lissan_House
You read in the first paragraph of the above link, the name…HAZEL RADCLYFFE DOLLING (nee Staples). I met her in the company of Elsie Bell, ca 2003, (died April 2006) when she was so very concerned about the demise of the Staples 400 year old family home!
This felt like shaking hands with the past, and bringing that past within reach, a past in which our ancestors, SAMUEL ALLEN,my gtgtgt grandfather, had a 40 acre tenancy from Staples, early 1800’s and MARY JANE COOKE, late 1800’s, my gt grandmother worked in the service of the Lenox-Conyngham family, Springhill House, Moneymore.
Letter rewritten exactly as original….eg no full stops, (I have left double spacing where perhaps fullstops were intended!?) capitals, and spelling NOT altered. Unfortunately some words not visible due to folds (kept in wallets for years!)
Moneyhaw, Moneymore, Co Derry 24/1/89 (1889!..da)
My dear Mary Jane,
I received your Kind and I assure verry welcome letter allright I gave me great pleasure to hear from you just ?? expecting it as a little love bird winged with white and I am just replying the day I received it so you cannot say that it is long I am so glad to hear you have got there safe but sorry you had stormy weather and of you being so sick why I feel quite terror stricken to think of you being sick but Dearest since you have recovered except the coald I am so glad I am sure you did feel a good bit lonely but since Mrs Burnet met you so nicely at Castle Garden it was…..?? as regards the young man Mr Vance of cource you will be picking (perhaps “flirting”?...da remark) up to him a wee bit. Most all they girls do now confess “and”? denie not people must treat strangers with Comon Equette. I am glad to hear of the nice houses and warm wether and such a nice Country that I will not think it odd if it is like Springhill where I so often rambled around of a Summer evening
As regarding the promis there is nothing wrong about that for I always keep my promis and this one in particular I will alway remember Keep yours….??? if you…..??.astonished if you would even think so for you know it is like the law of the Meads and Persians it altereth not why about going home on Saturday nights well the rememberance of absent ones will act as a magnet does it will always lure me out of the way of temptation I intend going out on or about the first of March you will have time to have a good look by the time this gets to you (had he intended to move to America and why didn’t he?...da remarks!) so say what you think I saw your mother the other Saturday night she said when she got a letter she would give me word but thought….??? Marie Hodder (?) had a youngster the other day and left it on Joe Brown so now as regards the s ….?? I will make up for that when we meet and will pay your kisses with compound interest so now my Dearest love I will have to wind up with Kind love and write soon soon
Your ever affectionat friend
Ro Smyth
Mary Jane Smyth had a sister, Annie who married a Mr McKee. In the 1901 Census, Annie was the head of the house at 33 years old (assuming that the husband McKee had died or they had separated?) and had 5 children….Wesley 15, Margaret 9, Charles 6, Thomas 3 and Robert 2. On the day of the census, April 1901 her brother in law John McKee was also in the house, was he living there or just visiting?
FURTHER BACKGROUND : Granny Allen cycled to Magherfaelt Technical College, 8km (5miles) from Moneymore, to be educated for the job as Postwoman in Moneymore....more detail to be added!
My Aunt Eileen (Allen) 1923-2008, later married to Ivan Bell, was in service for a period of time in Portstewart with the McKee’s, early/ mid 1940’s at a guess? They ran a Boarding House. She was a young teenager when she took on this position.
Two of the offspring mentioned 2 paragraphs ago, I have heard Dad talk about, and one of them, Robert/Bob (owner of the Boarding House in Portstewart?) was Station Master at Cookstown Railway Station. The McKee family resided in the red brick house beside to days Chinese restaurant (Lyttle, Accountants), known locally as the Station House, next to the Railway Station. This closed around 1957-58? He had a family in Cookstown, one of whom, a son, was a sailor who later married Louie Ford from Union Street. This son was a good "friend" to a relative of mine, before his marriage.
The other brother Dad talked about, Wesley McKee, was manager of an establishment in Moneymore. He was single. He was looking for someone to help with his house work, so Granny Allen who was his aunt, suggested a young relative, Lila Ross. At a guess this would have happened around the early 30’s. Lila’s aunt was Susanna Ross married to Granda Allen’s father.
This made Lila a full cousin of both Granda and Granny Allen! Check the Family Tree web site!
As I understand from conversations, Wesley McKee became attached to Lila. Wesley Ross was born in the mid 30’s. McKee didn’t marry Lila. Wesley was to become my hero. He would visit Granny Allen’s at Clare Bridge in the mid 1950’s and onwards until around mid 60’s, together with his mother Lila and her husband Bob Pearce, whom she had married later on in life. Maybe 2 or 3 times per year. It was always a visit I looked forward to. They lived in Glengormley and Wesley as a teenager was a car enthusiast. He also talked a lot about motor cycle racing, so he and Dad would chat a lot about the bikes. Then in the late 1950’s, 58 or 59, I had the thrill of my life. I have mentioned in my own personal story about the thrills I had in attending the Belfast Rotary Camp for disabled boys at Crawfordsburn, outside Belfast! Well there was another thrill for me to experience....spending a week end with that family in Glengormley, just a few weeks after my homecoming from the camp. This wasn’t just an ordinary week end, it was the Ulster Grand Prix, motor cycle world championship racing. All the world stars were there and Wesley brought me down for the Thursday, Friday practises. He organized too that we could visit the pits and get the riders autographs, ie John Surtees, the then reigning world 500cc champion, John Hartle 350cc World champion, Dave Chadwick, Luigi Taveri, Tommy Robb, a young Mike Hailwood etc. Then there was the race day….don’t however remember much about that day.
Before I continue I would like to share some photos of my Dad, with his racing motor bike, the Excelsior, in the mid 1940's and the weeks after my birth 1947.......!
I spent a lot of time with Granny and Granda Allen (Sam & Violet) and would cycle on my 3 wheeler across the field, when I came home from school. Sometimes there would be a smell of fresh baking, soda farls on the griddle on top of the Doric range, treacle bread and fruit scones etc. I would scrape the treacle bowl clean. I just loved that dough. When the farls were baked, we, maybe Yvonne was about (and if it was Wednesday afternoon, aunt Eileen (mentioned before) and her boys, Norman and Allister and aunt Evelyn (married to Sandy Brown) with Jennifer and Alan (Eric came later as he wasn’t born until 1959). We would get a farl split in two with butter and blackcurrent jam…I can still smell and taste those farls!
Warmth and security, that’s what it was……!
Granny, at this stage in life was still making her own butter. I can remember well her churning the milk, in the small cold pantry off the kitchen and watched it curdling and thickening. Then she would take the clump out and put it on something equivalent to a bake board, where she would slap it violently. Then she would cut into small lumps and shape it on the bake board with something like a wooden trowel type of tool, like a table tennis bat with a nice floral design. This would be used to give this “lump” of butter a nice finish with a floral pattern on the top side. Magic!
As a small boy I would travel around the countryside with Dad and Granda on a Saturday, when they would castrate piglets and/or "squeeze" young male calves (a form of castration without incision!) I hated to see it, but the craic was good with the farmers and the cups of tea, and bread. I usually got a glass of fresh milk from the newly milked cows and ate the same as the men.
Remember too as a very small boy, must have been the early 1950’s watching Granda milking his own cow in the byre at the side of their home at Clare. When I would appear, he would aim the cow’s teat in my direction and squirt milk on my face….guess how I felt? It wasn’t a negative feeling, it was just Granda having some fun with me!
He worked a small garden just off the front yard, towards our house, where he grew potatoes, and a mix of vegetables. They also had blackcurrent and gooseberry bushes in that patch. Their toilet was just beside the garden, between the byre and a store where he kept all his garden tools. He was a particular man, keeping all his garden tools very clean and would always show me how to clean the spade after using it. Never saw my Dad do it though! And uncle Ivan, well he broke quite a few spade shafts, when he borrowed sometimes. Granda would simply say he was ”han_less”!!
Off course I cannot forget the “gatherings” on a Sunday afternoon. Every Sunday Ivan, Eileen, Norman , Allister, Evelyn, Sandy, Jennifer, Alan, Eric (after he arrived in 1959!), sometimes my Dad, would spend around 2 hours “craicing” and the cousins would play. Once a month, aunt Mary, Earnest (Shirlow), Eileen, Alan, Ronnie and Julie (after she arrived 1966!) would arrive and there was great excitement prior to their arrival, which was usually around 3-3:30 pm. They were looked upon as different (why I don’t really know). They came the whole way from Coleraine, a long distance and always seemed to have a good car….although the black Ford Popular lasted many years! We would sit (pack ourselves) on the old sofa in the kitchen, but when the Shirlows came it was the bedroom.
The bedroom. That is where Granny/Granda's first telephone was installed. It was an extension from Evelyn/Sandy’s. How it worked technically I’m not sure? I do remember how important this installation was for them. They didn’t feel isolated, especially during the night hours. Granda suffered from asthma and sometimes needed medical attention at unsociable hours, or call for call to come and help when he got one an asthma attack. Once I remember visiting them and the phone rang. It was always Granda who answered.
I could hear very few words, but just before he put the phone back on the receiver I could hear him, in a rather frustrated voice, uttering the words, “”cuckoo pig’s ass”!! A salesperson with an English accent was trying to sell something, but Granda “didn’t understand a word they were saying”. In his frustration and anger he reacted by uttering these words. That expression is still used in the Allen/Sweden vocabulary to day!
“It’s time for you to go home because the “corbies” will get you”. A statement used by Granda to get me to go home in the winter evenings. As a boy (probably between the age of 8-14 or thereabouts?) I would spend most afternoons with Granny, after school. For me these “corbies” were real. As I cycled across the tree lined path (north side, to day the "Clarke side") back home at dusk or early darkness, the crows would flap their wings in the branches above my head as I passed by, scaring “the living daylights out of me”….so I did learn to go home early! Psychology?
The Granny I knew was a woman who was riddled with pain from arithis and rheumatism. Her fingers, toes were bent and her joints were always causing her discomfort. I don’t ever remember her without this. In the 1950’s Granny suffered greatly from the after effects of her menopause. It’s only my theory now as I look back. She suffered from acute depression and would worry about the slightest thing that wasn’t right! ie if Evelyn/Sandy were visiting Coleraine and weren’t home at a certain time she would work herself into a “fasten” with worry, as Granda called it.
She would have pulled the net curtain back, looked towards Festival Park and Browns' home and said something like...."ourns aren't home yit, hope they're all right!!". Granda would respond something like "catch yer self on woman, oul nick at ye again!"
I felt so sorry for her. She was taken on 2 occasions to the “Mental” Hospital in Omagh for treatment, which was electric shocks. It never seemed to do much, if any good. She would creep back into her “worry” state after a few months.
Granny was a simple woman, with a simple Christian faith and devoted to her Bible reading. As I was growing up she would talk and encourage me to become a Christian. She would ask me to go to different religious/Christian meetings, which I would do, to please her. She was happy that I attended Sunday School, Bible Class and Church. All this had an influence on me. She was a good kind woman and I will never ever forget her. Even to day that influence remains!
4 generations 1972
The year we left for Sweden 1973, Mark with Liz was 6 months. Steven was 18 months.
Because of Granny and Granda Allen at Clare Bridge, Cookstown, the cousins I have mentioned earlier, have nearly all (just one or two who perhaps just don’t have that need or desire) remained in touch since then, and no doubt will do as long as we live.
Granny & Granda Allen have left an indelable image in my memory. I will never ever forget them.
MORE....Faith Mission years, meeting Liz, their letters to us in Sweden etc