The Abram Family
My Dad was born in August 1944, the only child of my grandparents Louis Bowers Abram and Delia Eileen Clarke. Delia was the daughter of a Northamptonshire Police Sergeant, Albert Edward William Clarke who, on his retirement was described as having an 'exemplary character'. Louis, was the second son of Joseph Charles Abram an Army Sergeant and Millicent May Bowers. Louis, was a Corporal in the Royal Air Force. He learnt to fly in a Tiger Moth at Sywell but war broke out on the day he was due to take his test, so he never saw active combat. He later worked at Vauxhall Motors in Luton, retiring in 1970 after 25 years service having established 'an excellent reputation in respect of loyalty, conscientiousness and timekeeping'.
Joseph Charles served in the army from January 1901 to March 1922, receiving the 1914 Star, the British War Medal 1914 - 1918 and the Victory Medal 1914- 1918, as well as being mentioned in Despatches on 30th December 1918. Joseph Bowers Abram, the couples first son was born in Tempe, Pretoria, South Africa, in 1913, where Joseph Charles was stationed on army service. The child lived for 2 short months - he died of Enteritis and Heart failure and is buried in South Africa. It is believed that Joseph Charles made the railings which surround the child's grave and that he carried a photo of this with him in his wallet.
On discharge from the army, Joseph Charles Abram was involved in a number of projects. He built 2 houses on Mears Ashby Road in Earls Barton, built Earls Barton Motors in the early 1930's and ran Abrams buses which used to operate a small local service with trips to Wellingborough and back at weekends costing four pennies return. During the war the garage was used for repairing aircraft parts for Sywell aerodrome and in March 1943 the garage sustained a broken window when two Air Force Bombers collided and crashed.
Joseph Charles Abram was the son of Charles Abram and Emily Hutchings. They were married in 1880 and had many children, the youngest being Violet born in 1906 - Violet celebrated her 100th birthday in 2006. When shown an old family photo in her 100th year, Violet, re-called that the photo had been taken shortly after a family wedding and that the dress that she was wearing in the photo had been made of blue velvet. One of her brothers, George had come over from America to visit but Charlie Abram, my great grandfather, was not in the photo because he was in Africa serving in the war and Rose (Kathleen) was not in the photo as she was in Australia - Rose and her husband, an Australian soldier, had left around 1919.
Other family members went to Australia also - Reg followed in approximately 1922 - 1923 and Louis, Bet-Martha and Violet left around Christmas 1924, arriving in Australia on 9th February 1925. Violet was only seventeen at the time and it is believed that she travelled as Louis and Bet-Martha's daughter. They sailed aboard the Ship Esperance Bay on it's maiden voyage, which was later turned into a battle ship in the Second World War and sunk.