Everything tagged: Charles Olson

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.

Ethel Olson appears in photographs with my 14 year old father, Reggie Warren, both in Singapore and in Hong Kong. She was married to my father's uncle, Charles Olson, and seems to have taken him under her wing to some extent after his own father, Charles Warren died. Although the family myth is of a complete rift between the Warrens and Olsons after the death of Charles Warren in 1923, a note from Ethel still exists congratulating Cicely Warren, wife of my uncle, Leslie Warren, on the birth of their daughter in 1927.

I am looking for information about my grandmother, Hannah Warren, who returned to Hong Kong from England in June 1923 on the death of her husband, my grandfather, Charles Edward Warren, but whose funeral she did not arrive in time to attend. Her own death certificate states that she had spent "about" 25 years in Australia. We assume that she was evacuated from Hong Kong between 1939 and 1941, but there is no definite record of that. I haven't been able to find any record of where she was living after her return in 1923 until 1941.