Re: I am a Dames-Longworth..
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In reply to:
I am a Dames-Longworth..
philippa dames-longworth 10/05/01
Dear Philippa,
I"ve just sent you an e-mail to which is attached a picture of Hester Dames-Longworth with my mother's brother, Frederic Longworth, taken in September 1918 at or near Dublin.Fred visited Mrs. Dames-Longworth and her family at New Park, Blackrock, Dublin County, for several days in that September.I have (and have now found in my files) a copy of a letter written by Hester Dames-Longworth on October 14, 1918 to my mother — whom she had never met nor even heard of before Fred's surprise visit — in Montreal, Canada.It's a gracious, welcoming letter in which she talks of the visit, of her impressions of Fred, and of her family.She describes herself as the widow of Edward Dames-Longworth, son of Francis Dames-Longworth of Glynwood and Creggan, and says that her husband died in March 1909.She names their four children as Fay (Mrs. T.M. Montgomery), Travers, Pamela and Paulina.Fred met Pamela then 19) and Paulina (then 13), but not the older children..
I also have copies of letters written by Fred in October from France to my mother and to an aunt in Charlottetown, P.E.I., Canada in which he describes the visit and the Dames-Longworth family.He provides more genealogy , tracing the family back to Thomas Dames of Rathmoyle whose daughter Elizabeth married Francis Longworth of Creggan, probably about 1760.Fred was killed in action in France on November 10, 1918.Glynwood burned in 1919 and Creggan was burned in 1921.The Dames-Longworths moved to England and out of the lives of my mother and her family.My mother went to England and France shortly after the war, visited Fred's grave, met and married my father (an American newspaper correspondent), had her first child (me) in London in 1922, but never met the Dames-Longworths.My parents came to the United States in 1923 and lived here thereafter.
Did Fred meet your family?Would you like to have copies of the letters?I could mail them to you if you'll send me an address?.
Sincerely,
Jack Swift
(John Longworth Swift)
737 Bay Point Road
Georgetown, Maine 05458, U.S.A
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Re: I am a Dames-Longworth..
philippa dames-longworth 12/02/02