Ellen Kirston MELCHER (née OLSON, aka Nellie) [1886-????]

Nellie was the youngest daughter of John Olson and the fifth of his six children. She was step-sister of my grandmother, Hannah Warren. Her birth certificate gives her mother as Cheng A-Fung, who would later take Ellen as her Christian name, making two Ellens in the family. Nellie was born at 1 Ladder Street Terrace. The Ladies Directory gives her as living with her mother in Caine Road until at least 1907 after the birth of her nephew, Arthur, when her address is given at Charles and Hannah Warren's home at 2 Observatory Villas. She eventually married Evert Melcher and went to live in Shanghai, where he worked. She is still given as Miss Olson in 1916 arriving in Hong Kong on 3 April from San Francisco and departing for London on 7 April, so she may have married later that year. The Melchers' son was the youngest of John's and Ellen's grandchildren and nicknamed "Sonny Boy". He appears with them in group photos with old John Olson on the terrace of 13 Broadwood Road. His real name may have been Everett like his father's. The family are thought to have gone to Indonesia and then to Holland after the war. The couple split up and Nellie left Holland, but a photo shows her visiting her Olson nephews in Chiswick, London after the war. She is thought to have emigrated to the US after that, but efforts to trace her there have not been successful. It is not known if she remarried.