52-2 - King

The obvious choice for this week's theme ancestor is Nannie TUCKER.

Reason #1: Hers is the only branch of the family tree in which there is even a whiff of a rumour of nobility.

Reason #2: Her maiden name was Annie Alice DUREY. Get it? Du Rey? Heh!

The rumour of nobility is absolutely unproven by me so far. Family lore says that we are descended from a noble French ancestor who fled to England after being denied her inheritance due to gender. So far, I've found birth, marriage, and death records for Dureys going back to the 1790s, and someone else researching the same line has found even more. However, there has been no mention of France, exile, or lost inheritances.

Even if her family wasn't rich, Nannie was rich in family. She was born Annie Alice Durey in Ashford, Kent, England in 1890. She had two older brothers and two older sisters. A few years after she was born, her parents picked up the children and immigrated to North America, arriving at Ellis Island in 1894. Her youngest sister was born in a small town in Minnesota. They moved into Canada and through various Ontario railway towns over the next ten or fifteen years, but by 1911, they had settled in the Township of Burris, Ontario. Nannie found a job as a housekeeper and joined her sisters in the hunt for a good husband. 

Along came a strapping young lad, also from Kent, England. Archibald George Robert TUCKER went by the name George, and Nannie married him in 1916. My grandfather, Ted, was born a year later at their home in Winnipeg. Nannie's parents also moved to Winnipeg, and they lived in the house next door until they both passed away in 1936. Her siblings were often around, and her sister's son, Charlie, was great friends with Ted. 

Nannie and Grampa

Swimming at Netley Creek

When George died (he was only 54!), she moved in with her son and his wife, who soon appreciated her help with their growing family. The adventures continued in the form of summers at the cabin on the creek at Netley, drives through the countryside, and hunting and fishing trips. Many of the stories I've heard about hijinks in Winnipeg include the phrase "poor Nannie".

In fact, I've heard so many stories about Nannie, and seen so many pictures, that I feel as though I remember her. I "remember" doing things with her at Netley, but that's not possible. She died when I was less than a year old. There is a photo of us together - the bookends of a "four generations" shot. Me as a bald, smiling baby, Nannie in a hospital bed looking tired and frail with tubes coming out of her arms. As the oldest grandchild of her only son, I was the only great-grandchild she got to see before she passed away. And yet, she is so integral to the Tucker family lore that I feel as though I knew her.