Edith Annie Turrell (1867)

Born 16 Jul 1867 in Bournabat near Smyrna, Ottoman Empire

Ancestors

Died [date unknown] in İzmir, Türkiye [uncertain]

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Biography

Edith was born on 16th July 1867 in Bournebat, near Smyrna, in Ottoman Türkiye and was christened on 25th August 1867. ^[1]She was the daughter of Frederick Wallace Turrell and Helen Seraphine Perkins and she had a brother and a sister.

Her father had established a private boy's school which he named The English College in about 1853. Edith and her siblings were raised there. Her mother died in 1876, when Edith was 9 years old and her father married her mother's younger sister Frances Honorine Perkins, just over a year later and they had 2 more children.

Edith did not marry and she and her sister Alice remained in the family home with their father and stepmother (who was also their aunt). Edith's father died in 1894, when she was about 27 years old. After her step-mother grew elderly, Edith and her sister managed the household. ^[2]Edith lived there with her stepmother, her sister Alice, her half brother Reginald and his wife and 3 children as well as several servants. Her brother Wallace who was an advocate (barrister) seems to have lived there at times as well.

Edith and her sister Alice also had a small house in Mitilini, on Lesvos where they spent their summers, taking one of the servants with them on a rotational basis.

It is not known when or where Edith died. No record of her death has been found. Her mother and sister Alice both died in 1918, which makes it likely their deaths were the result of the flu pandemic.

By 1922 when Izmir was burned and the family fled to Lesvos for a year, Edith's half brother Reginald's wife Jessy was managing the house. However, in a family photo from 1931, with Reginald Turrell, his wife Jessy, their 3 daughters and Reginald's half brother Wallace, there is also a woman. This may have been Edith.

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Sources

1. ↑ Guildhall Manuscripts Collection at LMA, MS 29744, "Register of Births & Baptisms 1800-1959 and Burials 1801-1958" Author: C of E, Smyrna Anglican Chaplaincy, P.78 No.12 Edith Annie, dau. of Frederick & Helen Seraphine (nee Perkins) Turrell b.July 16th at Bournabat, chr. August 25th 1867
2. ↑ Scrapbook 1809 - 1922, a village near Smyrna, by Ray Turrell 1987.