Frank and Hannah Parker nee Cox and Winifred Elsie Parker
Frank Parker was one of the nine children of John Parker and his wife Mary nee Heeks. He was born on 28 March 1876 in Mickleton where his father was a shepherd. By the time he was fifteen he was working as a servant at a farm in Pershore, and at just 21 he married, in Wootton Wawen, Hannah Elizabeth Cox. At first they lived in Temple Balsall but by 1900 had moved to Stoneleigh. They had ten children over the course of 24 years. Initially they lived at The Bank, then Tantara Lodge, and Frank was a waggoner for Lord Leigh. By 1911 the family lived at The Kennels.
Frank served in the Royal Field Artillery during the Great War, working principally with horses, and was wounded in the neck in 1917. He returned to Stoneleigh to become a much-valued waggoner and driver for Lord Leigh and eventually became farm bailiff, living at Home Farm. By the 1939 register he was describing himself as Stoneleigh Abbey Estate Foreman. When he died on 25 February 1955 his age on the headstone was given as 79.
Hannah Elizabeth Cox was born in Langley on 12 January 1878, the daughter of Richard Cox and his wife Elizabeth nee Smith. She was baptised a month later on 10 February in nearby Claverdon. In the 1881 census when she was just three years old, she was living with her widowed father and her grandparents in Langley. Ten years later, she was working as a servant in Erdington for a lapidary; she is named in the census as Elizabeth but the place of birth is Langley and so this seems to be her. After such an unpromising beginning she lived a long life, producing a large family before dying at the age of 90 on 22 June 1968. Many of the Parker family would play a prominent part in local village life.
Winifred Elsie Parker was the youngest child of Frank and Hannah, being born on 23 March 1921, 24 years after the birth of her oldest sister Frances Amy. She was baptised at Stoneleigh on 1 May, and in the 1939 register she lived at home with her parents. Winnie, as she was known, started her working life in the timber yard at Stoneleigh Abbey during the Second World War, and then worked in the office there for fifteen years, as well as serving tea in the abbey gardens. She went on to live in Ashow for 46 years where she became a much-loved organiser of parties for the elderly as well as being the village postmistress. She moved to Stoneleigh to live in the almshouses in 1992, and died on 15 September 1999. A small commemorative stone is placed within the grave of her parents.
Frank and Hannah's children
William John Parker,
Frances Amy Dean nee Parker and
Ernest Frank Parker are buried at
B8.9,
B9.6 and
F3.2 (ashes interred) respectively.