Saturday NIght Genealogy Fun

Randy Seaver posts a regular Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge and this answer of mine is Saggers family related.

The challenge topic for this weekend came from Jen at Auntie Jen’s Family Trees. She had posted “Throwback Thursday Favorite Toys” on 23 January, and Linda Seaver thought it would make a good SNGF topic. And Randy agreed.

“What are some (one or more) of the toys you played with as a child?
Share your favorite toy(s) with us….”

My favourite toys were books and dolls, to put them alphabetically. I don’t know which I’d have rated first when I was little. Before I left ‘home’ I ended up with a lot of dolls, and quite a lot of books. I still have a few of the dolls and a lot of the books – and more.

Not everything was brand new. In fact, since my Na enlisted me to help at the church sales she was involved in, I often got to pick out dolls and books second hand. And sometimes, if I was lucky, things were passed down to us.

Here is a now old book with thick board pages given to me by my great aunt and uncle, Uncle Bob and Aunt Elsie, my grandmother’s sister. It’s ‘well loved’, but still good enough that I read it to my little grandson.

It was published in England – the Saggers sisters were all from there; they’d emigrated to Canada in 1907. The book is from the 1940s so someone brought it back from a trip or perhaps a relative in England sent it here to Vancouver. As I child I didn’t care that a few scenes weren’t familiar ones but as it happens, many were. As you will see, the book was inscribed for me by Auntie Elsie and Uncle Bob. I’m sure I was excited about that. Not for my baby brother!

I was pretty careful with my books; my mother was always watchful, I thought. But this book does have initials pencilled in on almost every page. Whose, I wonder? And whose writing? I know it’s not mine. Maybe it’s one of those Saggers-Westwood cousins??