Home made wine buffs?

[Cubist]

We've spent the last few weeks clearing my mum's bungalow for the new buyers to move in. In and amongst we found a couple of bottles of home made wine. I remember my father discussing how he made them, and joked about the parsnip version stripping the paint in the kitchen.

We've spent today burning various bits and pieces that we couldn't sell, eBay, give to charity or freecycle and my sister, my brother and I have decided to play roulette with the two remaining bottles.

We chose the bottle labelled PARSNIP 1955. The cork pulled cleanly, and first sniff was promising. It poured clear and clean, the colour of tawny port. A tentative sip and bloody hell it's awesome.

Its very sweet, like a fortified dessert wine, or a fine port, rich and smooth,

Good effort Dad! Wonder if you thought we'd be drinking it 60 years after you stripped the paint with it?

 

[Cubist]

In fact, as my eldest brother hadn't been born in 1955, he couldn't have had any inkling that any of us would have existed. Shame Mum couldn't have shared it with us, she'd have loved it.

 

[pplpilot]

Fantastic and very sad at the same time. Here's to your folks

 

[dan_bo]

Parsnip wine rocks.

 

[Cubist]

Parsnip wine rocks.

Norraaarrf!

 

[vernon]

That sounds like it knocks my 1984 elderberry wine into a cocked hat. I shared some of my last bottle with my son tonight and he was gobsmacked that it was older than he was and that it was made from berries that were picked from some waste ground where he used to play as a kid.

Mine too tastes like a fortified wine/medium sherry.

 

[Cubist]

We've left the blackberry 1955 for another occasion, and opened a half-bottle of damson gin I made using mum's damsons last year and gave her for Christmas... she never left hospital to try it. Currently leafing through some letters from her father Valentine to her mother Maude which he wrote when he was moved up to Birmingham to work on some gears for a wartime project with the Sheldon Gear Co. We've also found the letters Mum and her sister wrote home while evacuated to Ilfracombe.

 

[wisdom]

We've left the blackberry 1955 for another occasion, and opened a half-bottle of damson gin I made using mum's damsons last year and gave her for Christmas... sIe never left hospital to try it. Currently leafing through some letters from her father Valentine to her mother Maude which he wrote when he was moved up to Birmingham to work on some gears for a wartime project with the Sheldon Gear Co. We've also found the letters Mum and her sister wrote home while evacuated to Ilfracombe.

How sad, however you have uncovered some real history.They were special people who came through adverse and hard times.You should celebrate what they have done and be very proud of them.

 

[Cubist]

Not really all that sad, Mum was 89 and simply slipped away due to old age. We had done most of our grieving back in January.... she welcomed the end with serenity and a real sense that she was simply embarking on the next stage of her journey, and we were privileged to be able to share her last week or so with her. Her unshakeable faith paid dividends for all that knew her.

 

[Cubist]

As for history, she loved letters. She had passed onto her bundles of letters and in turn kept any that were of significance to her. A distant relative contacted her a decade or so ago, and found they were of immense value to his own efforts to trace his family history. The letters and a bit of delving by him traced Mum's mother Maude Cowles to an orphanage in Rickinghall. Her line traced further back to forbears whom we thought initially were French, but turned out to be White Russian refugees. A sad history of poverty and scrabbled existence, Maude eventually trained in the dairy business, and we have photos of her in a very formal training environment. Further papers show she was a primary school teacher I later years. Valentine David Talamo, my grandfather, was an engineer. He has a couple of patents, and worked as I said for the Sheldon Gear Company. We found a book called The Land Of The Rainbow, which was presented to him by a team of Polish Officers who were put in his charge during the war to learn how to use whatever system he was working on. The inscription in the book is dated 1942, the year he died. He in turn was the son of an Italian opera singer, David Valentino Di Talamo, and we have a couple of posters with him on them.

Little curios keep popping up. A photograph of the director of the Lanchester Motor Company driving a Lanchester, dated 1916, and then a receipt for a Lanchester Driving Machine also dated 1916. The price? £4 8s 11d. Mr Talamo clearly hadn't done badly for himself. He died when Mum was 17, and the photos of the family all together are a poignant reminder of times past.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

Great thread!

 

[Cubist]

Well, the house is now empty. Mum moved in there about five years ago and saw out her last years in a tranquil setting, taking great delight when bedbound in the many birds that visited her bird table on the patio just outside her bedroom window. My brother, my sister and I have spent the last few weeks deciding what to do with various bits and pieces and artefacts. You may describe her as a bit of a hoarder, and a lot of what was kept, lovely though it was, is of little interest to collectors .... for example a lovely dining table and chairs failed to sell on eBay even at 99p ... inlaid mahogany and rosewood ... it ended up going to the BHF. Unable to sell the nicest pieces we shared them between us, if only to stop them going for a song to dealers. I have inherited a lovely longcase clock and a Davenport desk, my sister had to have her chimney breast removed to accommodate a stunning welsh dresser that the local auction house turned their nose up at, and my brother has a beautiful bow fronted corner cabinet and some silver. We have shared the majority of her paintings....she was a talented artist, and produced some lovely studies of flowers and garden scenes, and that has been no hardship- when Dad was still alive he used to frame them for her and they sold like hotcakes in the village. All three of us have several that failed to sell, or were painted specially for us for birthdays etc, and of course her absolute favourites were displayed though the bungalow. We've chosen favourites and agreed to have prints made of the ones we all like, and the remainder, including several Dad never got round to framing, will be sold at a charity auction for her local church.

Determined that someone would benefit, my sister has worked tirelessly to distribute the rest to worthy causes. A charity that assists vulnerable people to live independently has taken most of the kitchen utensils, a local charity shop for the children's air ambulance has had all of her clothes, and a local man who sources furniture for elderly folk has had the suite, and the beds have gone on freecyle. A couple of surprises on eBay, one being a 1957 GEC fridge which she still used, and was bid up to £75 , and a carboot sale of bric-a-brac earned the kids a couple of hundred quid holiday money between them.

We've therefore now locked the place up ready for the new buyers and I've made my way home with a car load that will give Mrs Cube nightmares (she hates clutter!)

 

[Cubist]

Remember upthread that my great Grandfather was one Davide Talamo, an Italian Opera Singer? Well, a dig through the many hundreds of letters and papers show that he was in fact my Great, great grandfather, I skipped a generation.

One bundle of letters were thought originally to be love letters sent between Davide and his lover, and then wife Josephine Servtius, my great great grandmother. They were all written in Italian or French, mostly in exquisite copperplate and my mother held onto them for the romantic notion that they were the documentary history of a beautiful love affair. The cousin who embarked on the genealogy trail wrote to her about fifteen years ago and asked if she could fill in any gaps in the family tree, and when she revealed she had this bundle of letters and papers he was of course delighted. He had already traced a member of the extended family in France, and between them they had the letters transcribed and translated. What they revealed was anything but mundane, turning the romantic notion on its head, and revealing a poignant tragedy worthy of any period drama.

I have just scratched the surface, but I'll give you a little taster.... I need to do a bit of research into the history of revolutionary and post revolution France to put it all in perspective and get an accurate picture of what happened, but Josephine appears to have been the great granddaughter of very wealthy family, the first known entry on the family tree being Mathias 1er Servatius, (1730-1794). Mathius' son Joseph Servatius (1764-1841) was Maire de Grand-Rullecourt, Pas De Calais. As far as I can make out, the son of the original owner of the Chateau de Grand-Rullecourt was sent to the scaffold and the chateau sold off as a national asset. If Joseph Servatius was the Maire during his lifetime, he may well have been the purchaser. We do know that his son Jean Servatius (1794-1860) was also Maire De Grand-Rullecourt, and that he sold the Chateau. We also know that the grandson of Antoine-Constant De Hamel, (the original owner), bought it back, so it appears that the Servatius family of that generation (Mathias 1er's grandsons) Mathias 2nd (1791-1853), Barthelemy (1793- 1870) and Jean Servatius (1794-1860) all benefited from that sale which must have been a huge sum in those days.

The stage is set, we have three brothers in France in the years immediately following the Revolution with a third share of a family fortune.

The Chateau is now a hotel by the way.