Fanny Louise Legg was born in 1902 in the village of Stoke Abbott near Beaminster, Dorset.
In the 1911 census, she was with living her recently widowed mother Matilda and two brothers in the Stoke Abbott Poor House.
At the age of 13, it's most likely she was placed in service as a maid and family history says that at some point in her life, she was employed by the Rothschild family and ventured as far as Scotland and France.
In the 1939 census, Fanny was the cook and housekeeper for a teacher, a certain Gertrude Bath, in Wandsworth, and now the reason for us knowing her comes to light, for in September 1939, the teacher and the schoolchildren were evacuated from Wandsworth to Dorset. Volunteers were recruited, and Aunt Fanny certainly went with her employer.
My cousin Gerald says that Fanny, as a wartime evacuee, was staying with his Grandmother (my Great Aunt) at the Dairy Cottage, Chilbridge Farm, on the Kingston Lacy Estate near Wimborne Minster, Dorset, where we live.
My own Grandmother (sister of Gerald's Gran) also had two evacuees in her home in Wimborne, and all stayed in touch, but it was Fanny who came every year at Easter and stayed for a week or so.
She was, without doubt for us children, the sweetest, kindest person you could wish to know and was well deserving of the title 'Aunt Fanny'. Our Family history says that she worked at the Mildmay Mission Hospital for many years.
Andy K