As a young child, I noticed my parents wedding certificate had my father listed as a widower - but as I obtained this information by being nosy, I didn't ever ask the obvious background questions.
When my Mum died in 2009, the questions which I had failed to ask earlier resurfaced. It was clear my Dad must have had an earlier marriage and he was forty years old when he married my Mum. Yet I doubted I would ever know any details about my father's first marriage.
However, my Brother-in-law, Alan, researched and obtained a copy of the marriage certificate of my father's first wedding in 1924 (when he was just twenty-six), to a twenty-two year old woman named Edith. He also obtained Edith's death certificate. She died in 1930 of heart disease, aged just twenty-eight. My father went on to marry my Mother in 1938.
So I had the answer to the question which had remained with me for nearly sixty years!
Clearly, I owe my very existence to the untimely death of this unfortunate lady. I wished I could learn more about her but that seemed unlikely.
In recent years I had become curious about whether there were any children from that marriage; and the bombshell came soon after, when Alan informed me that he had obtained birth and death certificates for their child, who was born prematurely in 1926 but died aged just twenty-three days!
A half-brother!
His name was Edward Frank, named after my grandfather and my father.
It is hard to imagine what my Father must have been through. After surviving active service in the horrific trenches in World War I, he experienced the joy of a happy wedding, followed by the birth and subsequent quick death of his only child. Then, just four years later, came the death of his beloved wife. He never spoke of these matters.
I flew home from Mum's funeral, having learned about this marriage for the first time; and wondering why my parents never told me. (Perhaps I should have asked!). However, although I had established Edith's identity, I am still finding it hard to comprehend that I had a half-brother who briefly lived and died nineteen years before I was born!
Then, following these revelations, a wedding photograph emerged!
1924: Dad with first wife Edith. I owe my existence to her death.
Four years on and I am still battling to come to terms with all this but I do not think that either Edith or Edward should be forgotten.