John Alun Edmonds 1816413 Sergeant (Flight Engineer) Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve
Also
Margaret Ann Edmonds nee Williams, Odey Edmonds and Mari Megan Kendrick nee Edmonds
A Commonwealth War Grave headstone commemorates
John Alun Edmonds; small memorial stones to other members of his family lie horizontally beneath.
John Alun Edmonds ( see also
M 17) was born in Coventry on 24 November 1916, the second son of John Odey Edmonds and his wife Margaret nee Williams. Two sisters were born in 1919 and 1922.
In mid-1938 John was married to Edna Beatrice Powell, in Coventry. He was a senior stores account clerk at Armstrong Whitworth. He died aged 27 on 25 July 1944 on war service, on a night training flight. The engine of his Stirling III aircraft developed problems and landed just short of the runway at Gaydon. He had lived at 134, Anchorway Road, Coventry. His wife remarried after the war.
Margaret Ann Edmonds nee Williams was the mother of the three other family members commemorated here. She was born on 18 December 1885 in Glamorganshire, one of the nine children of Watkins Williams, a blacksmith, and his wife Ann. [ NB at death, her date of birth was given as 20 December 1885.] Until her marriage she lived in the family home in Cilybebyll, Glamorgan. Her marriage was registered in early 1912 in Pontypridd to John Odey Edmonds, the son of a Daventry butcher. When their first son was born they were living in Coventry.
By the time of the 1939 register Margaret was living at Sunningdale Avenue in Coventry with her son Odey. Her husband, a store clerk, was at the time registered on Foleshill Road. Margaret died 30 August 1972 at the age of 86 and her ashes interred with her son.
John's older brother,
Odey Edmonds, lived to the remarkable age of 101. He was born on 19 July 1913 in Coventry and by the time of the 1939 register was living at Sunningdale Avenue with his mother, and working as a textile clerk. In 1942 his name can be found as a deck hand on board the SS City of Bombay ship, travelling from New York to Port of Spain; he had been with the service for two years. By the following January he was arriving in Florida. Nothing further is known about these interesting movements during the war. When his father died in 1964 in Northamptonshire, Odey was granted probate and his occupation then was as a cost clerk. He had worked at Courtaulds for 50 years, and when the famous towers there were demolished, he had the honour of pressing the button!
He died on 27 October 2014 and his ashes were interred with his family.
Their sister
Mari (sometimes Marie) Megan Edmonds was the youngest sibling, born in 1927 according to the gravestone. She married Clifford P Kendrick in 1959, and died at the age of 83 on 17 May 2010. Again, her ashes were interred with the family.