Betsey Taylor nee Box
Betsey Taylor was born in Willington, south of Shipston on Stour, on 17 October 1868 and was one of the six children of Edwin Box and his wife Hannah nee Norledge. In 1891 she was working as a servant in Brailes, and later that year, on 10 December, she married James Taylor, an agricultural labourer whose family hailed from Epwell in Oxfordshire and whose father was a carpenter. Epwell is a short distance from Brailes.
Betsey and James had nine children, and the family made several moves, to various addresses in Stoneleigh and Ashow. James had become a shepherd by this time, but sadly died in 1921. Betsey suffered other losses, since two of her children had died by 1911 and one son, Maurice James, serving with the Machine Gun Corps, died on 13 April 1918 after sustaining wounds during the "final push" of the Great War. He is buried at Ebblinghem, near Hazebrouck, and is commemorated in Stoneleigh on the war memorial.
Betsey was to survive her husband by almost 30 years. She died on 30 December 1949, aged 81, and was buried at the beginning of January 1950.