Category: Le Messurier – Eda 1885-1976

Eda le Messurier

Eda was an only child, and born in Guernsey. Her father was the postmaster of Guernsey. She grew up speaking  Guernsey patois and english, but went somewhere in France to learn “Parisian France”. She also went to England, Rotherham, in Kent to learn to be a teacher, where she was a teacher in the 1911 census at the Municipal school at Rotherham. Then she returned to Guernsey and then eventually became the headmistress of a […]

Granddad – William Stringer

William Stringer was a teacher from Lancashire. He moved to Guernsey where he met and married Eda Le Messurier. In Guernsey he was headmaster of a boys school, and Eda was headmistress of a nearby girls school. He came from Ashton under Lyne. They had two children, Margot and Desirée. Margot was born in 1914. In 1916 he enlisted  in the Lancashire fusilliers. He wasn’t supposed to enlist if his wife was pregnant, but she […]

Memories of Great Gran – Alfred Thoume le Messurier

Alfred Thoume le Messurier was “great-gran” to Jean and Tiny. He had been the postmaster of Guernsey, like his father before him. His daughter Eda Le Messurier married an englishman, William Stringer, who had come to Guernsey to be the headmaster of the boys high school, and after a decade of marriage, they moved to English, as WIlliam got a job as a school inspector in the north of England. Eda (who was an only […]

Letters to Margot Stringer in NZ from father William in Exeter

  16/12/53 My dear Margot, Here is a line to wish you all a happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year. Your mother is in normal form. The Le Messuriers are a long living family and though she is now 70 68 years of age her hair is just as it was when you last saw her. My own hair is quite white; that is just after I have washed it, but it is a […]

Letter from Eda LeMessurier to Jean Lang re Tourtel family history

This post is a letter from Eda LeMessurier to Jean Lang (her granddaughter) describing the family history of some of their mutual ancestors, the Tourtels. In particular, Robert Tourtel (pictured), who was Eda LeMessurier’s uncle. The letters are transcribed below. TOURTEL Now we come to the country people, engaged mostly in agriculture, & later building greenhouses for tomatoes and grapes & cultivating daffodils;  but even then rearing Guernsey cattle for American buyers.  Many men working […]

1941 Account of an escape from Guernsey sent to Eda Le Messurier

This is an undated  account of an escape under fire from Guernsey across the Channel to England after WWII started.  The account  was copied by Eda Stringer, and contains her  additional notes. Possibly escape was August 1941.  It is not clear whether this whole transcript is written by the same person, or whether it ‘morphs’ into a letter from Eda at the point where the group was taken to Scotland Yard. Note from Eda: From […]

Letter 1940 June Evacuation of Guernsey – Edwin Le Messurier – Eda Le Messurier

Note from Eda Stringer at top of letter:                                             Holme View, Aglionby, Carlisle  15.7.40 Failure to evacuate more completely must have been due, as he says, to the Guernsey authorities.  It looks as if they had not asked for sufficient boats, so I don’t think the Cabinet can be blamed!  Father had been told, you remember, that the Bailiff had gone jittery & that contradictory orders had been issued.  No wonder the island was in a state […]

Letter 1940 June (2) Evacuation of Guernsey – Eda Le Messurier – Margot Stringer

Monday Dear Margot Here is a link to the wikipedia article about the Guernsey evacuation. The latest news is that 2000 Germans (two thousand) landed in Guernsey alone.  This comes from the Waymouths.  Father was away during the whole of Sunday – 9 am to 7 pm – dealing with the children.  Someone, he forgets who, had had news of the Waymouths.  They have a very big bakery at L’Islet, in the Vale Parish, & […]

Letter 1940 June Evacuation of Guernsey – Eda Le Messurier – Margot Stringer

Note at top of letter: You know the two big posts at the gate, with the ramblers.  Father pruned them severely this year, & they are perfectly gorgeous, huge clusters of blooms as big as your head – the clusters, not the blooms. Saturday. Dear Margot Here is a link to the wikipedia article about the Guernsey evacuation. Thank you for your letter.  Either I missed out a comma! (Father’s pet) or else you missed […]

Le Messurier family photos

  Eda Le Messurier is pictured in the middle of her extended family. At the back, her aunts Agnes and Lou standing. Seated, her grandfather Nicholas, Eda herself and her grandmother Mary Ann Thoume. At their feet is her uncle Harold.  Agnes and Lou were very skilled needle workers, and taught Eda many skills.     Nicholas LeMessurier with the silver tea service presented to him when he retired in 1898  from his position as […]

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