Elizabeth FOWLER

   User ID: P00025736.

  General Notes:

Elizabeth, called Aunt Tetty, lived in "The Chains", the Old Fowler Homestead as a housekeeper/spinster who lived with her father and two servants. The "homestead" is described in the Rusling book as "an excellent stone dwelling-house on the main street of Winterton on a lot extending through to another street. Here in Winterton, Joseph Thomas Fowler lives, when at home, and spends much of his time there."
Elizabeth wrote 'Between Trent and Ancholme' published in 1908. From that book is copied the following recipe where flowers from her garden were used:
"here is 'Pot-pourri.' (From The Lady's Realm, Oct. 1902.) 'With the last Roses of Summer, if you can find a little Lavender, and sweet-scented Carnations, throw them in, too, with Sweet-briar, 'Lemon verbena,' and Rose-geranium, or other scented leaves. (This is what was, or is, 'The Musk -geranium.') Stir them lightly every day, until perfectly dry. Add 5 drops of oil of Cinnamon, oil of Cloves, oil of Lavender, and otto of Roses. Tie all up tightly for a fortnight, when the Pot-pourri will be ready for jars or scent-bags.' I have lost sight of my old 'receipt, by which our scent-jar was filled; in or before 1872. Of what date? I inquired what quantity '1s. worth of musk' then included? I would not 'salt ' the Rose-leaves, as directed, - and have never regretted it. Many tiny little boxes have been given out of it, to children. Now and then a head of Lavender, a sweet-scented Geranium shoot or two, and a sprig of 'Lemon verbena ' ". . . "have been added." In her book, she also speaks of games of the 1800's and thoughts of people. Later she says, "To refer again to childhood and girlhood, - how much indebted we are to conscientious parents, and teachers, and kind friends, who help us, to store our scent-jar of enough to acquire and to memories when we are young enough to aquire and to retain for after-uses and fragrant joys!" Another part of the book said, "Labour is the parent of all the lasting wonders of the world,
Whether in verse, or stone; whether poetry or pyramids."
The book is primarily about her garden at theFowler family home, The Chains, which is described in detail.
*****
A letter from Elizabeth Fowler to her dead father about the garden of 'The Chains'.
Your Garden.
The garden grass grows brown for lack of rain.
Little tattered clouds melt into a milky - blue sky and are lost.
The restless leaves of the aspens murmur like the tide on a shingley beach.
Behind them, the sun gleams on high above the tower of the Church.
A neighbours dove, escaped from its cage, is cooing beneath the shadowy boughs of the cedar.
Other shadows, thrown by swiftly-fleeting swallows, dart across the lawn, and over it drifts a white butterfly.
Now, a robin flies out of the yew, and, startled, flits back to cover again.
White pinks and summer-roses scent the garden.
The Rosemary is in blossom.
The grey boughs of the fig trees show through newly come leaves.
Crimson snap-dragons shine by the wall of the house, the house where you were born, the house where you died.
If you could only sees the blue flowers of the anchusa as the sun falls on them!
If you could look down on the great poppies glowing in the border that you loved!
If you could stand in the shadow of the cedar, drawing the scented leaves of the lavender through your hands!
The corn-flowers are blue, the irises and violas are white; bay-tree and Laurel-boughs flash in the sunshine.
Two days more and the Battle of Waterloo will be a hundred years away. Now, the Great War wearies the Earth, and you, you will soon have been in your grave for five years.
*****
Lucille Webster took a picture of Elizabeth's tombstone on May 31, 2000, at Winterton town cemetery. The stone reads, "Elizabeth Fowler, August 29, 1841, August 7, 1910, It shall be well with them that fear God."
The Ruslings of Hull, England, actually originate in Lincolnshire, England, as do the Fowlers.
References: Data about Elizabeth is provided by (1) Goeff Garrard, historian in Winterton, Lincolnshire, England and by (2) Lynda Hotchkiss, Genealogist at Lincolnshire Archives, St. Rumbold Street, Lincoln LN2 5AB incorporating Lincoln Diocesan Record Office. (3) "Fowler Family" as outlined and given to Lucille Webster by a Winterton Historian, Evelyn Harvey-Dew, at Evelyn's home in Winterton, England, June, 2000.