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The
memorial card says Jack was 29, but he was born on Sept. 24, 1889, which
makes him 26 when he died, which comes back to having lied about his age
to get into the marines, not uncommon in those days. The date given is
that of the actual battle, he died on June 10.
Vera & Queenie 1917
Alice Gower death certificate, July 1928
On the back: 'Taken May 1929' - appears to be Vera age 12, possibly at her brother's house in Southsea.
The
photos above appear to have come back from Australia, on the back of
both it says: "Vera Gower aged 18" (ie: 1934). On the
back of the left picture is added: "The lady born 6 weeks after
Jack's death. They were very poor. She had some leg trouble too."
Vera, right, as bridesmaid at Queenie's wedding. August 18, 1945
On the back: Richmond, Yorkshire, 1956. Vera is wearing a 'plastic mac' to keep the rain off, the other woman is unknown.
Vera Gower
July 23, 1916 - February 10, 2010
Vera's father was John 'Jack' Gower, a private in the Royal Marines, who was seriously injured on May 31, 1916, at the Battle of Jutland. He died from his wounds 10 days later at the age of 26. Vera was born five weeks after his death, with the swollen legs that remained with her for life.
Her mother, Alice Gower, nee Farrer, had previously lived with Thomas King for 15 years and had four children with him - Henry, Joseph, Dorothy (Dolly) and Mary. She called herself 'Mrs. King' though they never married as he already had a wife and children elsewhere. In 1913 Alice, 37, married Jack Gower, 23, and they had a daughter, Queenie, born in August 1914.
Vera was now the youngest of six children and her mother was left with just a small pension from the Royal Marines. The family remained at 6 Mill Lane, Gosport, opposite St. Vincent's barracks where Jack had been based. The rest of Jack's family had emigrated to Australia just before the war.
In 1918 the second son, Joseph King age 13, died in the influenza pandemic. There was no money for a funeral so he was buried in the same grave as his step-father Jack Gower.
Meanwhile the eldest son, Henry Francis King had married Daisy Seymour who had been living with the family whilst, or soon after, Vera was born. They had a daughter, Margaret, in 1920, but Daisy died of TB in 1922 and Margaret was raised by Daisy's family.
Soon after 1924 Vera's aunt, Jessie Farrer, moved from Yorkshire to live with the family at Mill Lane, but she had no income and Alice could not support her. By this time Henry was living with Louisa Purser, and another child, Doreen, in Southsea, so Jessie went to live with them.
In 1928 when Vera was 12 years old, she had to watch the slow and agonising death of her mother from stomach cancer, leaving the four girls - Dolly 20, Mary 17, Queenie 14, and Vera 12. Alice was buried in the same grave as Jack and Joseph at Anne's Hill cemetery Gosport.
The four girls moved to Southsea to live with Henry, Louisa, Doreen and Jessie. Eight of them living in a 3 bedroom house eventually became too much for Louisa, who had Queenie and Vera packed and ready to move to the Royal Marines orphanage. Dolly decided they should stay together so she found them all a single room off Albert Road, Southsea. Dolly and Mary were both working in some form of domestic service by this time.
Vera attended school in Somers Town, Southsea, and recalled being sent home one day because her clothes were too ragged and dirty. In 1930, age 14, she left school and became a housemaid at a large house in Alverstoke, Gosport, where Mary was by then working in the kitchen. She had long hours, little pay and an unsympathetic household. With her bad legs the physical work was very demanding, and domestic service for her a 14 year old orphaned girl was little more than slave labour.
At some point in the 1930s Vera contracted tuberculosis and spent and entire year in an isolation ward in the old east wing of St. Mary's hospital, Milton. Most people would probably have just given up by this time, but somehow she used this to turn her life around, and seems to have used the time to improve her education, especially in dealing with numbers.
During the 2nd world war Vera was working at Priddy's Hard, a munitions depot in Gosport. Her sister Queenie was also there, working on the shop floor filling shells with gunpowder. Vera was working in the office - doing the accounts. How she achieved this is not clear, but she must have made an enormous effort to improve her situation.
Vera never knew, until she was well into her eighties, that her maternal grandfather, Joseph Farrer, had been a bank manager and successful businessman in Yorkshire. He died before Vera was born and was never mentioned by her mother as the family appears to have disowned Alice for living with Mr. King. But Vera seems to have inherited some of her grandfather's abilities. She also only knew in 2009 that her uncle, Henry Farrer, had gone to the USA where he became chief statistician for the biggest insurance company in the US, the Hartford - he brought his family back to England in 1929 but made no contact with his nieces.
After the war, in August 1945, Queenie married Sergeant Albert Davis, with Vera as her bridesmaid, and became the only one of the four sisters to have children.
Mary (sitting) and Vera near the end of the war.
Vera worked for several years for the NAAFI (Navy, Army, Air Force Institute) in SW London. The NAAFI provided food and accommodation for servicemen, but Vera was again doing the accounts whilst living in a young women's hostel in Esher. She said she and a friend used to go over to Wimbledon when the tennis was on and wait outside the door of centre court. They couldn't afford tickets but when a match was running late there would always be people who had to leave early, so they got free tickets for the end of the match and saw some of the greatest players of the era. She mentioned doing the same thing at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, though they could only sit in the top gallery there.
Vera seems to have moved around quite a lot at that time, but by the 1950s she settled into an accounts job with Gieves and Hawkes, a major tailor for Naval officers and gentlemen, in Portsmouth where she remained until she retired, eventually being promoted to office manager and dealing with the payroll as well as accounts. She never married and retired when she was 60, in 1976.
Meanwhile, Dolly had suffered a nervous breakdown and spent the war in St. James hospital, Portsmouth. She then found work as a housekeeper for a retired bank manager, Mr. Sandercombe, in Twyford Avenue, Portsmouth. He died in 1967 leaving the house to his son but giving Dolly the right to live there for there rest of her life. Vera shared the house with her from 1967, but managed to keep her council flat in Gosport by returning to it once a week - which turned out to be for 33 years, as Dolly lived until 2000 when Vera returned to her flat. (Unfortunately for Mr Sandercombe's son Dolly lived to 92, by which time he had died and the house went to the grandson).
At the end of 2009 Vera spent some time in Queen Alexandra Hospital before being transferred to a nursing home in Gosport. She had been generally well, just finding it difficult in the flat on her own, but on the evening of February 10, 2010, complained of feeling slightly unwell, and passed away peacefully a couple of hours later at the grand age of 93.
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Birth 1916 - Vera Gower, Jul-Sep, Alverstoke 2b 928 mother Farrer
Vera Gower - short version of the birth certificate from 1916, with a copy issued in 1950.
Mill Lane in 2005. No.6 was at the left end of the terrace (now
re-numbered as Upper Mill Lane no longer exists). Below the view of
the Marines Barracks (now part of St. Vincent's College) from the door
of No.6
Grove Road school, Gosport in 2005 - attended by all the girls
between 1913-28
A young Vera
Priddy's Hard munitions depot in Gosport, now a museum, photo 2005
Vera with Queenie's children. Summer 1949
Vera Gower, age 89, in 2005 at Ann's Hill Cemetery, Gosport,
by her father's grave.
Vera's mother, Alice and her half-brother, Joseph King, were buried in the same grave.