Finally I have the proof!

Hello Everyone:

Well, look what we found (my Mother and I)! Finally I have found the documentation to prove that my Grandmother worked in the factory in England prior to the war making teddy bears! I have mentioned this to many and had a few uncertain looks when I could not answer to the name of the factory at which she worked. We have since been looking for 2 years now to try to find this information. We contacted the remaining family of my grandfathers in England but all of my grandmothers family are gone and his family weren't sure. Then we tried Ancestry.com and just prior to me almost hiring some serious help from them I received a phone call from my Mother to say she found this letter! It is exactly what we needed to show that indeed my grandmother was a bear maker, learned and worked in England and then continued to create all through her life.

I then began to research more on the factory itself. This was very difficult to find any information on. However through the magic of blogging I did find a gentleman who had just recently gone to walk along Purdy High Street in London and I thought I would take a chance and ask him, this complete stranger, if along his travels he had seen this factory which seemed to be located on this street according to the address located on the letter.

He was very kind and not only wrote me back with fairly extensive information concerning the street and the fact that the building in which the factory had been was recently torn down ( to me utter dismay) but also took the time to find me a photo of the factory taken a year or two prior to my grandmothers arrival at the factory! How fabulous is that!

So now I not only have a letter but also a photo of the factory, located on the left hand side of the street just past the church, to show exactly where my grandmother worked. How wonderful to see with my own eyes the place where her journey through bear making began and in essence my journey also! How touching to see that she not only worked there for several years but was dearly loved by many there (not a surprise of course but truly touching to read).

I was so thrilled to find this information I just had to share it with you all! I hope you enjoy this as much as I and thank you for you patience in me coming up with the hard evidence to prove where she worked. At first I was a bit put off that some thought I was not being honest but in the end... look what a treasure I have found that might have been lost forever had I not NEEDED to find the truth about her work history in this field!

Oh and on one final note... if you took the time to read the letter....

My grandmother was married to my grandfather since that very wedding day that is spoken of.

They travelled the world together, had two children and loved each other till the days they died.

She was indeed very happy! As a matter of fact even through her alzheimer's she never forgot my grandfather and often said how much she missed him...

Finally they are together again and most likely still travelling the world and deeply in love!