The Family Portrait
If you are related, by blood or affection to any of the
people in this picture, then this web site is for you.
Family Blog
I have now started a "Gadd Family Blog" that is a
private blog for family and friends to connect, share
stories and pictures etc.
Please
send me an email if you would like to be included
but have not received an invitation. (I sent invitations to
all of the family members that I had email addresses for.)
You must join the blog as an author in order to participate.
How It All Began
As
a child I found it hard to understand how we had no
relatives. We emigrated first to Kenya and later to
Canada. Other people seemed to have all kinds of aunts
and uncles, grandpa's and cousins. We had two Grandma's
living in the UK who managed to come for
visits every three of four years. It didn't seem like
much of a family.
There
weren't too many pictures either, and this lack bothered me
more as I grew older. I had once seen a photo of my
grandfather, "the famous golfer". I tried to get a copy
of it, but it slipped away. My grandmas died, and
both of my parents. It seemed like soon all trace
would be gone.
Over
the years I developed some skills with the computer. In
2001 I
was at a party and was introduced to someone who said
he was a sport's historian. I asked him if there was any
good way to find out information about someone who was a
little bit famous in golf. He suggested I run a search
on the internet.
When I
got home that night I ran a search on Google for "Charles Gadd
+ Golf". The first link that popped up was to the
Ipswich Golf Course where Charles had been a pro. It happened to be their Centenary, and they
happened to have a list of all their pro's right there on the
home page. I was amazed!
Through their web site I contacted the archivist of the Golf
Course, Dr. Tony Biddle. By serendipity he had received
a letter just a few months before from Albert (Bert) Gadd, my
grandfather's younger brother, who was 93 years old and living
in Chester, England. I wrote to Bert hoping that he
might write back. I was so surprised when a few days
later he telephoned me! For a precious but short time
we enjoyed a correspondence by mail and several phone calls.
I would have loved to have been able to fly to England to
meet him.
Through
Bert I got contact information for many other relatives in
England, Canada and America. My genealogy studies were
interrupted by the arrival of my granddaughter Jasmine
Serena Gomez-Gadd who came into this world on November 26,
2003, the day after Bert left it.
Since
Bert's passing I have had it in my mind to create a web site
that would link up all the various family members, and
guarantee that these pictures and this marvelous story would
be available for all the children, grandchildren, great
grandchildren, great great grandchildren and great great
great grandchildren of Frank and Kate Gadd of Malvern,
England. If you are related to anyone in this
family then this site is for you, and for your children.
This also includes those of you who were adopted in, who
married in, and those of you who just have a big interest
in golf and golfing history.
Luckily
for all of us Bert kept journals of all the
golfing events that touched his long life from 1909 to 2003.
His interest in golf never waned. In
his biography, written with John
Marshal Cameron
you will find more of a historic
remembering of golf, than a family history. The
personal side of their lives remains to be told and it seems
to me that if we are to have any record of it then we need
to be about writing down all that we remember. The
lives of the Gadd women remains in the shadows, and I am
hoping that some of you out there will remember Kate,
Violet, Nell and Evelyn, or remember stories you heard about
them.
Please
help me find whatever missing pieces there are left to this
puzzle!
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