Pass the Secret - Part II

Read Part I first

My great-aunt filled in many blanks in my family tree when she told me the stories her mother had told her father, and which her father had told her.  Her mother, Louie Smith or Schmidt, was born in 1883 in Romford, Essex, daughter of Johannes and Maria (née Reineke) Schmidt, and had married William Clark in 1914.  William and Louie had five daughters, the youngest of whom lived only five days.  Louie died in 1948 and in 1953 William remarried.  His second wife, Lucy Victoria Pavitt, predeceased him in 1973, and William, then aged 80, went to live with his third daughter and her husband in Wales.  

William Clark and Lucy Pavitt on their wedding day, 9 September 1953

Before he died in 1977, William told her the stories of her mother’s family:

Louie’s parents had come from the Netherlands to England illegally before she was born.  Her father, Johannes, had spent some years in the Dutch Army and then began a carpentry business with a fellow ex-soldier in Amsterdam.  He suffered from asthma and a ‘weak chest’, and often was hospitalised with bronchitis or other respiratory problems.  It was during one of these hospitalisations that he met Maria Reineke, an orphaned girl working as a hospital servant.  A relationship bloomed and they were married.

Johannes’s poor health continued to be a problem and he was again hospitalised.  When he had recovered, he found that his business partner had fled with all the money and that he would have to declare bankruptcy.  This carried a gaol sentence.  Johannes and Maria turned to her family, which had contacts in the shipping trade, and were snuck aboard a ship bound for London.  In those days goods ships from the Netherlands had a dedicated dock at which people could board or disembark without any questions asked. 

Johannes and Maria had arrived in London and found a place to live in the dire poverty of the East End.  It was there that they joined the Salvation Army: Johannes found employment teaching carpentry at a school sponsored by the Sally Ann, and Maria had occasional employment working as a translator in the London Courts.  They eventually moved to Romford where they raised their family of four.  Johannes’ health was never good and he collapsed on Christmas Eve 1904 at Liverpool Street Station after meeting his son.  He was taken to a nearby house where he died.

Louie, as the youngest child, was expected to remain at home and look after her widowed mother, and she did this for many years, even travelling with her mother to Amsterdam several times – something to do with banking – Louie didn’t speak Dutch and her mother never told her what business she had in Amsterdam.  When Louie fell in love with William Clark, however, and announced that she wanted to marry him – she was then 31 years old – her mother refused permission.  William offered to have Maria live with them, but Maria would not give her consent to the marriage.  She told her daughter that she would be cut off from the rest of the family if she married.  Louie and William eloped.  Maria was true to her word and never spoke to her daughter again.

William remembered that Louie’s two sisters, Mary and Jane, would arrange to meet Louie and, in time, her family.  Mary would sometimes visit the Clark household in Ilford, but Jane felt that it was too close to Maria in Romford and would only meet Louie by prior arrangement at a nearby grocery store where one of Jane’s sons worked (this son’s son, upon hearing the story, confirmed that his father had indeed worked there for years).  The only sibling who would not see Louie was her brother Jack.

When Maria was dying and Louie too ill with a difficult pregnancy to visit one last time, William felt that it was time to make amends and for Maria to meet her granddaughters.  With the youngest on his shoulders (this child being my great-aunt who told me the story) and the older two walking in front, he took his little family to George Street to pay his last respects.  Jack met them on the doorstep and refused them entry: his mother had said that Louie was dead to her and he would not go against her wishes.

I asked my great-aunt when her mother was born and she said it was 5 February 1883 at George Street in Romford.

Now had a few more details.  Johannes Schmidt had died on Christmas Eve 1904 in a house near Liverpool Street Station and not in Romford as I had thought: within a week I had his death certificate, showing that “John Schmidt” had indeed died just around the corner from Liverpool Street Station – cause of death was acute bronchitis (supporting the detail about his ‘weak chest’) and heart failure.  The witness was his son John, who said that he had been present at the death, supporting the detail of the father going to meet the son at the station.

I also now had a story of a family fleeing from bankruptcy and coming to England illegally.  What better place to hide than in the crowds in the East End?  The pieces began to fit: the Dutch records showed a Maria Reineke, an orphan whose family had business in shipping, who had married a carpenter named Jan Bootes, born in 1843, but then Jan Bootes disappeared and Maria turned up in England as the wife of carpenter Johannes Schmidt, born about 1843.  Maria’s mother’s maiden name was Schmidt.  What if she hadn’t left Jan Bootes after all, but Jan Bootes had simply become Johannes Schmidt?  And how would I prove this?

I began by looking for Bootes records in England and then everything happened all at once.  All the birth certificates I’d been unable to find for my great-grandmother and her siblings – they were all there, but not as Schmidt or Smith – they were all registered as Bootes, their real name.  Henrietta Maria, the baby born in the Netherlands to Jan Bootes and Maria Reineke was there with them in England, but when she died in infancy, she was registered as a Schmidt.  They were even on the 1871 census as Bootes, but had given only initials to the enumerator – illegal immigrants scared to give their real names to the government?

I began to order certificates and soon had their family tree put together at last, after nearly a decade of on-again off-again work:

• Jan Bootes, carpenter, born 12 March 1843 in Amsterdam and married there on 8 August 1867 to Maria Reineke; died 24 December 1904 in Spitalfields, London as Johannes Schmidt.  He appeared on the 1871 UK census at 19 Turner Street, Mile End, London as J. Bootes; for the 1881, 1891 and 1901 censuses he was at 36 George Street, Romford, as Johannes Schmidt
• Maria Reineke, born 8 August 1844 in Amsterdam; died 13 March 1923 at George Street, Romford as Maria Schmidt.
• Henrietta Maria Bootes born 19 July 1868 at Amsterdam, daughter of Jan and Maria (née Reineke); died of hydrocephalus 21 January 1870 at 19 Turner Street, Mile End, London as Henrietta Schmidt, daughter of Johann Schmidt, carpenter
• Johannes Bootes, born 7 December 1869 at 19 Turner Street, Mile End, London to Johannes and Maria (née Reineke) Bootes and died there of diarrhoea on 26 July 1870.  Father was a carpenter
• Henrietta Mary Bootes, born 23 March 1871 at 19 Turner Street, Mile End, London to John and Mary Bootes (née Reincke).  Died of hydrocephalus 3 July 1872 at 86 Grove Street, St George in the East, London.  Father Jan Bootes was a carpenter.
• Maria Henrietta Bootes (Mary), born 27 September 1872 at 86 Grove Street, St George in the East, to Jan and Maria (née Reineke) Bootes.  Father was a carpenter.  As Mary Harriet Smith, married Joseph Greenhow on 3 July 1902 at the Congregational Church, South Street, Romford; father was John Schmidt, a carpenter.  Gave her maiden name as Smith on the birth certificates of her children.  Died 5 May 1962 at Redhill, Surrey as Mary Harriet Greenhow.
• Johanna Hendrika Bootes (Jane), born 28 May 1874 at 38 Baxendale Street, Bethnal Green to Jan and Maria (née Reincke) Bootes.  Father was a cabinet maker.  As Jane Harriet Schmidt, daughter of John Schmidt, carpenter, married Richard John Benfield on 12 March 1904 at the Congregational Church, South Street, Romford.  Gave her maiden name as Smith on the birth certificates of her children.  Died on 2 January 1962 at Hainault, Essex, as Jane Harriet Benfield.
• John Bootes (Jack), born 23 August 1877 at 9 Shacklewell Street, Bethnal Green, son of Jan and Maria (née Reineke) Bootes.  Father was a cabinet maker.  As John Schmidt, married Emily Salisbury on 24 December 1898 at Great Ilford Parish Church, Essex.  As John Smith, was living in Redworth Road near New Shildon, County Durham in 1911 and still there in 1923.  Further details unknown.
• Louisa Henrietta Bootes (Louie), born 12 February 1883 at George Street, Romford, daughter of John and Maria (née Reineke) Bootes.  Father was a carpenter.  As Louie Smith, married William Clark on 19 September 1914.  Gave her maiden name as Smith on the birth certificates of her children.  As Louisa Clark, died 7 March 1948 at Chadwell Heath, Essex.     

Louie in 1915

Louie around 1938.

What must their life have been like?  Were they always fearful of being caught?  Did they even tell their children their real names?  In a time when a birth certificate wasn’t needed as identification to get a driver’s licence or a passport, did the children ever need to see them?  Johannes and Maria Schmidt are buried together at Crow Hill Cemetery, Romford and I really should visit someday, even though I now know that the name on the monument is incorrect.

Their story isn’t over: it lives on in more than 100 descendants.  One day I’ll find out what happened to Jack and his family and the tree will be completed.

Also…what was in the box?