Family Lessons 161: Crowded House

The Census for 1911 enumerates the occupants of Number 35, Moor Lane, Lancaster:

George Winn, aged 50, boot maker & repairer (my 3x great-grandfather)

Isabella, aged 52 (my 3x great-grandmother)

Thomas Winn, aged 28, linoleum works labourer (my 2x great-grandfather)

Eleanor Wilkinson Winn, aged 29, (my 2x great-grandmother)

Elsie Winn, aged 4 (my great-grandmother)

Three generations of my ancestors all living in one house: what tales they could tell! I would pay a pretty penny just to have one hour of their time, to scour their memories and ascertain their views. Yet it would not have been a very quiet interview, for Number 35 was also home to various uncles and aunts, some of whom were then babies, children and teenagers:

John Henry Winn, aged 32, boot maker & repairer

Martha Walker Winn, aged 14

Harold Winn, aged 11

Herbert Winn, aged 9

George Winn, aged 3

James Winn, aged 1

And if the house was not noisy and crowded enough, there also lived with one Joseph Holland, a lodger, aged 21, another linoleum works labourer.

To accommodate a dozen folk, the house cannot have been that small nor the combined income too meagre, but there would not have been much privacy or personal space, either. To live with one’s family may minimise the prospects of loneliness and destitution, but it does mean that we share our space and persons with them. This is also the case with a church, which should be our spiritual family. The Lone Rangers who follow Christ but don’t bother with church have no others’ burdens to carry and no annoying fellow members to vex them. So long as YouTube keeps providing their favourite preachers and desired style of 'worship' music, all is well. Those who obey the Bible and join a church, however, enjoy the benefits of a family, as well as the problems, for this is the way God intended it.

A. D