What DID we know about Maurice Burt?
Maurice Edward Burt married Aunt CB’s Aunt Clara
Taylor on June 3rd, 1923. By the 1930 census, Burt is no longer
living with Clara, who would end her days in Willard Hospital with mental
health issues. Clara’s story has already been beautifully written up by Aunt CB
in this blog before—
So we’ll just add a bit to who Maurice Burt was,
along with some pictures of his family.
Clara Taylor and Maurice Burt
Maurice
was the youngest son of the Burts, who had six sons and two daughters. Maurice
was born on April 10th, 1902 in the small village of Chale on the
Isle of Wight off of Great Britain. As a teenager, he watched his five brothers
go off to fight in World War One; angrily he rode his bicycle down to enlist,
but was too young.
In March of 1921, a nineteen year old Maurice sailed
to St. John, New Brunswick on the ‘Scandanavian’. He made his way to his
brother Charlie’s home, in Ontario right across from Buffalo.
Two years later, he married our Clara. In the 1925
Batavia City Directory they were living together; his occupation is a
machinist. In 1929, the City Directory still lists them living together, but
sometime during this year, Maurice took off to his brother’s house in Canada.
Clara hired a private detective who managed to track him down; Maurice told
Clara he would return to her, but he never did, thus further shattering
Clara’s fragile personality.
Records tell us that by the 1930 Census, Clara is a
roomer living with two other couples and she is a dressmaker. Further city
directories name her as a widow, which we know is not true. A Toronto City
Directory from 1938 places Maurice in Broadview, near Toronto.
What became of Maurice? We are not sure, but one
newspaper clipping has a Maurice Edward Burt—late of the Royal Canadian
Engineers—‘very quietly’ marrying Frances Elizabeth Cunliffe Hardy in October of 1945 in
Whitchurch, United Kingdom. This does sound like our Maurice, as he would have
wanted to finally get his chance to fight like his older brothers, and he would
need to marry quietly as he was still married to Clara.
Although
we do not know who is who in these pictures, here are family pictures of the
Burt Family:
One is of
Maurice’s family when he is a very young boy. The other is perhaps the marriage
of one of his siblings? Maurice seems to be the man in the darker suit—the best
man?
Maurice
Burt—another puzzle in the Taylor Family tree. We can only hope that Clara had
some happy memories from the six years she lived with her husband.
6 comments:
One time when Alex was probably 8 or 9, we were hiking and found a small private airplane crashed partway down a hill, hidden by some trees. It had apparently happened long ago and had just been left there. We wondered what had happened.
Alex got out a notebook and started writing down clues. We searched all around the airplane to get ideas of how it had crashed and why it had stayed there, then used those to generate theories. That started our plan to create the Mom and Alex Detective Agency. Maybe detective work runs in the family?
I wish I could help you to "SEE" the Aunt Clara that I knew! She was petite, always neatly dressed and well groomed. She was the aunt who asked about our dolls, our paper dolls our joys or heartaches. She was also the one who shared her dress maker samples! They were just the proper size to work as blankets for our paper dolls , which were figures cut from a neighbors funny papers and stored in a 2X4 in matchbox! [ depression days!]
Now I realize that she was sharing what she had not had in her childhood! Hers was a Busy childhood, as the oldest she helped raise younger sisters and brothers! [ and had a mental break when her 5 year old sister died from scarlet fever .} Clara was 20 then. She has always carried a special place in my heart!
That is a sad story about Aunt Clara. But it's nice that her memory lives on, Aunt CB, through her kindness and interest in the lives of her nieces.
In July 1948 Frances Elizabeth Cunliffe Burt (nee Hardy), wife of Maurice E Burt Esq. was residing at Pumula Winter's Kloof, P.O. Natal South Africa, formerly of "Beechwood", Orpington in the County of Kent. She appears to have inherited a significant amount of property fromm her family in South Manchester.
In July 1948 Frances Elizabeth Cunliffe Burt (nee Hardy), wife of Maurice E Burt Esq. was residing at Pumula Winter's Kloof, P.O. Natal South Africa, formerly of "Beechwood", Orpington in the County of Kent. She appears to have inherited a significant amount of property fromm her family in South Manchester.
Thank you for this new bit of information!
Post a Comment