My father's parents are Carol Christie (Newport, Rhode Island) and Michael Duke Doulton (Dulwich, London, England), who met whilst skiing in Davos, Switzerland in 1938. Very chic for those times!
Carol is the daughter of Miriam McCloud and Paul Theodore Christie. They had 3 daughters, Eleanor, Carol and Miriam (Mimi). Paul was a Harvard Graduate (Economics Major), but after a brief spell on Wall Street, became a languages teacher and they lived on campus at St George's School. He was an all-round athlete (particularly swimming and Alpinism) and sports instructor, who was famous for his expeditions to all parts of the world, from rock climbing in Yosemite, cliff diving in Acapulco to taking his teenage daughters hiking and climbing in Chamonix in the French Alps.
Paul Theodore Christie is the son of Theodore & Carmelite Christie of Tarsus, Turkey, where Theodore (Presbyterian Minister) was Principal of St Paul's College, an American mission school attended by many Armenian boys at the time of the massacres in the early 20th century. Theodore & Carmelite were active in raising awareness of the persecution of Armenians in 1908 through to WW1 and in helping to protect them from the genocide that was attempted in Turkey. The episode is recounted in 'The Red Rugs of Tarsus', a memoire by one of their colleagues. Paul's early education was in Tarsus, but he moved to the US to complete his education when he was in his mid-teens. He and his brother Emerson (linguist in the US State Department) spoke many languages including Turkish & modern Greek, French, German, Italian and of course could read Latin and ancient Greek.
Miriam McCloud came from a Boston family which could trace its ancestry to John Howland, a Pilgrim Father who almost didn't make it to Massachusetts as he fell over-board from the Mayflower and was fortunately rescued. Another ancestor was sister-in-law to John Hancock who was the first signatory of the US Declaration of Independence and the family are distantly related to Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams. See Chris Collman for a fully research genealogy and family history. Miriam majored in French at Wellesley College graduating in 1912. My cousin, Eleanor Read, is the 4th generation of women in our family to receive a university education!
Carol was educated at Walnut Hill School (suburbs of Boston) and gained entry to Wellesley College (her mother's alma mater) at only 16 years old. She was fluent in French, having spent time in a boarding school in Lausanne during her early teens, and loved French history knowing more about the 16th Century in France than she did about American history. In her 2nd year at Wellesley, her mother became ill and Carol decided to go back to Newport to be with her in the last weeks of her life before she died of cancer. After her mother's death, she didn't return to college, but spent time in NY with her sister Eleanor before her father invited her to join him on a trip to Europe, for which he had a sabbatical, in early 1938. This was the trip where she met her future husband Michael Doulton.
Michael was the son of Orrok Mills Doulton and Catherine May Duke. Orrok Doulton, was a direct descendant of John Doulton, Sir Henry Doulton's brother, and the last generation of Doultons involved in the famous Doulton Pottery business. He had 4 children, Peter, Michael, Rosamund and Sherwood. He served in WW1 with the Sherwood Foresters, but had died sometime before his eldest son, Michael, took a ski trip to Davos in 1938 and met his future wife Carol.
My grandfather, Michael, was a Hurricane fighter pilot (Flying Officer) with the RAF's Fighter Command 601 Squadron (Debden & Tangmere - code UF- ) and was killed in action (31 August 1940 - see Official Campaign Diary) over the marshes of the Thames estuary during the start of the Battle of Britain, WW2. He was a mechanical engineer and one of the first civilian pilots to be called up, in large part due to the fact that he was one of the "Millionaire's Club", whom had the means and had learnt to fly, so could be combat ready with little training.
My grandmother, Carol, was already pregnant and consequently returned home to her father in Rhode Island, USA. My father Paul was a posthumous child, born on the 14th April 1941 in the same hospital, Newport Hospital, as his mother. This had been the agreement between her and Michael to ensure the safety of her and their child in the event that he was killed. Carol did various jobs to support the war effort while Paul was a small child.
In 1944, before the WW2 ended, she decided to bring Paul back to his father's country, England, for his upbringing and she crossed the Atlantic in convoy, sharing a stateroom with P.L.Travers (author of Mary Poppins), who contracted mumps which she then passed on to my father! Carol and Paul went to live with her sister Eleanor, now married to another Englishman (Tim Mead), while they found work and accommodation.
St George's School
Aerial photograph, famous view from the grounds onto 2nd Beach
and of course, the mascot, St. George's Dragon!
Links to Battle of Britain for further history:
In 1946, Carol responded to an advert for a teaching post at Vinehall Preparatory School, nr. Battle, E.Sussex in England then being run by Mr & Mrs Jacoby, initially for Juniors (7-10 year olds). She much wanted this as it allowed her son Paul to be brought up with other boys and men as he'd no father. Her particular enthusiasm in teaching was History, Scripture and English and as one of the few female staff, provided a lot of support to the younger boys, much as Matron would.
Shortly afterwards, Vinehall was taken over by Major & Mrs Menteith. Mrs Menteith's sons, Richard & Ron Taylor, had co-incidently been skiing in Davos in 1938 and had asked Carol to let them in through her window when they were shut of the pension one night. Imagine Carol's surprise when Richard later turned up at Vinehall to teach Geography & Maths after being de-mobbed from the RAF where he had served as a bomber pilot.
When she had settled at Vinehall after the war in a cottage called Woodside at the bottom of the school drive, Carol discovered that an old friend, Tom Gilbart (from Princetown in deepest Dartmoor!), was teaching at Rochester Mathematical School in Kent. Tom had known her sister Eleanor at Exeter University in the 1930's where he had gained a science degree after entering the University at 17. After graduation, he won a scholarship to travel to the US and visit a number of 'New Deal' projects, and during his visit to NY met Carol who was staying with her sister Eleanor. They had remained in touch through his service in the war with the Royal Artillery, where he served in the Normandy campaign which followed D-Day (6th June 1944), the Allied invasion of France. In 1949 Carol & Tom married, with 8 year old Paul Doulton as best man! Tom continued to teach at Rochester and spent weekends with them at Woodside.
Within a couple of years, they had two more children, Andrew and Marian Gilbart (see Relatives page for that side of the family) and because family housing was impossible to find in Rochester, Tom decided to give up his Grammar school career and take up a job at Vinehall and live permanently at Woodside. Tom was a very brilliant mathematician, but he also had a great intellectual curiosity and a wide range of interests. He had a great gift for explaining concepts to children and engaging their interest in any subject, and generations of Vinehall boys and other children whom he coached, have tales to tell of how he managed to teach them the impossible! The door was always open at Woodside and it became the basis for many family gatherings and friendships which still continue. Famous, were the celebrations of both Carol's birthday and American Independence on the Fourth of July.
After Tom's death, Carol took up work at The Battle Bookshop where she became the region's authority (if not the S.East's) on books and to this day is remembered as the 'American expert on books from Battle'. She's now retired close to her daughter, Marian, in Hampshire. The rest is history!
My mother (Anna Elizabeth Torma Juhasz) is originally from Hungary and her family were one of the leading land titularies of Estergom up until WW2 till the subsequent invasion by the Russians in 1956. My mother's grandfather was a forester and viticulturalist and her mother (died December 2003) was a leading viticulturalist in Hungary, consulted by many vineyard owners from all over Hungary. Sadly, I know little of this side of our family, but I do also know than they too had a heritage of building and flying gliders and aircraft, so somehow it's in the genes that I too was to become passionately involved in flying until my recent paragliding accident put a stop to it.
After fleeing from the Russian invasion in 1956 at the age of 16 my mother reached Germany where she became a nurse and studied at the same time. Several years later, she took up a job as an Au Pair in Sheffield, England where she met my father at a party.
Paul had left Vinehall School in 1954 to enter Westminster School (where his father, his brother Andrew and myself also studied). He showed early on the family gift for languages and made visits to Switzerland and Austria to improve his French and German, in which he gained A-Levels. After school, he decided not to apply for university but to take up an apprenticeship with Steel Peach & Tozer, a steel firm in Sheffield. At 17, he went to live in lodgings and had to make new friends as was 200 miles from home. He joined the International Club to practise his German and French and at one of their parties, he chatted-up an attractive Hungarian girl in German. He also began to learn Spanish at night classes and did an HNC to improve his business qualification which later in life, at 33 allowed him to enter and finish in just 1 year his MBA from NCU, Greenville, North Carolina.
Paul & Anna married in 1963 at Mountfield Church (where he had served as best man in 1949 - just 8 years old) with a reception at Vinehall School. They lived and had their first two children, Rebecca & Maria (my elder sisters), whilst living in Psalter Road, Sheffield.
Paul's language skills meant that at an early stage he gained international business experience which helped him move from the steel industry a couple of years after their marriage, to the pharmaceutical industry with Burroughs Wellcome (now Glaxo-SmithKlyne Beecham). It was then that they moved to North London, Chingford, where I was born. He then spent the larger part of his working career and became head of their Latin American business based in Mexico where my parents are now retired and live. On the way, we came to live in Kenya (before I was born, but my two sisters were born), Guatemala, Costa Rica, USA (Greenville where he gained his MBA), Spain, England, Uruguay then finally Mexico in 1979.
