I want to tell you the story of Sylvia Stoltz. She lives in Australia, is 93 years old and my heading is a quote from her latest letter.
Actually, I only have space to tell you of a tiny fraction of her life – that part which involves our family history – so let me summarise the major part of her life by saying that during WWII she worked, governed by the Official Secrets Act, on a project in North Queensland researching the use and effectiveness of mustard gas in various weapon systems. Although sworn to secrecy for only 30 years very little has been published about the research team’s top secret work except for one book which used a number of photographs from an album donated to the Australian War Memorial Archives by Sylvia herself. Now, meaning over the last five years, she has been putting all her records, including re-scanned photographs, on to a CD as a permanent record. From that letter I could sense the relief that the job is now completed and knowing her, it will have been a job not well, but perfectly, done.
Sylvia and I first corresponded in 1989 and she told me that she had visited Suffolk in 1984 looking for information about her great grandmother, Eliza Vale (1821-1902) who had worked for Robert Knipe Cobbold (1792-1859)(#100 in the tree) at The Rookery in Carlton. Eliza’s daughter, Sarah Ann (born 1842), migrated to Australia in 1864 and married into the Stoltz family, Sylvia being her granddaughter. I wasn’t any help to Sylvia but she has been a quite extraordinary supporter of the Trust’s activities helping, particularly, with information about many of the characters in The Gifts of Frank Cobbold as well as providing much of their background. That help has been greatly appreciated.
Whilst over here in 1984 she confirmed that her family had lived in the village of Little Glemham and that one of her cousins had worked at Glemham Hall before it was owned by the Cobbolds and that another had worked in the garden and subsequently married one of the maids who arrived with the Cobbold family.
She also learned that St Andrew’s Church in Little Glemham was in need of a new drape behind the font. She immediately put up the money to provide it and later sent more money for an embroidered dedication panel. In a manner of speaking the circle was completed by a service dedicating to Sarah Ann Stoltz the drape behind the font in which Sarah had, herself, been baptised in 1843.
Sarah Ann Stoltz (née Vale). Born, Little Glemham, 1842; died, Benalla, Victoria, Australia, 1927.
Copy: Anthony Cobbold, based on Sylvia’s letters (2013)
Photos: Sylvia Stoltz (1984)
