
09/04/2024
This grainy image of a woman is the only image I have of my maternal Great Great Grandmother Annie Atkinson nee Brumby. My knowledge of her was largely inherited from family records so I have always known that she was born in 1862 in Torksey, Lincolnshire and died in 1925 in Barnsley, Yorkshire but recently I have been re-visiting my direct line and filling in details that are missing or not known to give a fuller picture of the lives of my Ancestors. Annie's birth and death certificates were missing from my collection so I decided to acquire them and was surprised and saddened to discover the cause of her death. Annie's body was discovered in the Aire and Calder Canal at Barnsley and an inquest into her death concluded that she had drowned herself whilst of unsound mind. I also learnt that she had been in an asylum some years previous to her death and regularly suffered bouts of depression. It's so sad that this was the end result of my Great Great Grandma's life and looking back at the life she endured and knowing that support for mental health wasn't anything like it is today, it becomes easier to understand how she arrived at the state of mind where she felt she had had enough of life. She had given birth to ten children during her married life but lost five of them within a year or two of them being born. She had lost her husband eleven years previous to her own death to cancer, lost both parents whilst in her 30s and was 1 of only 3 siblings out of 10 that were still alive in 1925 so had witnessed a lot of death and personal grief. I feel sad that at the end of her life she was desperately sad instead of being surrounded by the remainder of her family finding great joy in the legacy she was leaving behind. Depression and mental health conditions affect our family greatly. Only this week, my son has been involved in a charity fundraiser for MIND, the mental health charity. I will now forever think of Annie when we engage in any effort to combat this terrible disease that claims too many lives. I loved her before I knew the finer details of her life but I love her more now for the struggles she bore as she carved out a life for those that eventually shaped me.