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Chapter 3: Eliza Verry and her family
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Eliza Verry was the wife of Thomas Williams (born 1853). She was born in Aconbury on 3 April 1855 the youngest of five children of Thomas and Mary Verry. Eliza's father, Thomas Verry (1816 - 1885), was a woodkeeper, and his father, John, was a woodreve. John Verry (1782 - 1842) also worked as a gamekeeper at Guys Hospital Aconbury Estate, a job which was passed down from his own father, John Verry (1758 - 1829). This Verry family has been traced back at least as far back as 1725 by other family historians, and can be seen at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~maggiesirishkin/verrior3.html and http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~maggiesirishkin/acon.html
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Another story from the Verry family is that of the sudden death of Eliza Verry's mother, Mary. Her death certificate declares her 'sudden' death to be caused by the 'visitation of God.' An inquest was held where the last final moments of Mary Verry's life were re-told: after performing her calling of mid-wife she said 'Oh my poor head ... It is the cold' and then instantly died. But the doctor examining her body could find nothing external to suggest a cause, and thus declared her to have died fom a disease of the heart. Mary Verry's gravestone (1855), in Aconbury graveyard, is still in tact with its ominous inscription: 'Death is sure/in memory of MARY wife of THOMAS VERRY of this parish who died Decr 5th 1871 aged 53 years Fare well my husband and children dear I am not dead but sleeping here, as I am now so you must be there-fore be prepared to follow me.'
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Mary Verry's Inquest, The Hereford Journal, 9 December 1871
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