John and Ellen Maude Goode nee Charles
John Goode has become something of a legendary figure in Stoneleigh history. For very many years he was the village blacksmith. He was born on 5 April 1888 in Stivichall, the son of Edward Goode and his wife Charlotte Maria nee Boneham. He was baptised there on 22 May. The family was, even by Victorian standards, a large one, as he was one of eleven children.
Shortly after 1903, William Sparrow, then the blacksmith at Stivichall extended his remit to work in Stoneleigh, and took as a young apprentice John Goode. John continued to work as a blacksmith in Stoneleigh until he retired in 1967, at the age of 79.
On 5 October 1910 John had married Emma Elizabeth Bennett, at Stivichall. They went on to have three daughters and a son. In 1911 they lived in New Street in Kenilworth. Emma died at the end of 1922, not long after the birth of her daughter Doreen in October.
On 7 June 1924 John married
Ellen Maud Charles in Banbury. She had been born in Warwick on 24 August 1890, the daughter of Ann Selina nee Clark and Frederick Charles, an iron moulder. Shortly after 1891 the family had moved to Oxfordshire. Perhaps it was her father's profession which acquainted Ellen with John Goode the blacksmith.
The newlyweds lived on Birmingham Road in Stoneleigh until her death on 29 January 1963; John survived until 4 November 1970.