In 1853, a widower named John Angel married a spinster named Mary Spaven. It’s hard to know what kind of life that John promised Mary but she’d end up in Canada by the end of it. A life in Canada would eventually allow them to ‘own’ some land, which was just a dream in their native Yorkshire!
Further to the realities in Mary’s life was bearing children! Mary may not have foreseen it but in her time, she bore ‘12’ children! This meant that she spent 108 months being pregnant and that translates into 9 years or a total of 3,360 days. Historically out of 12 children, there were 3 that didn’t survive childhood and in her era (1833 – 1895) having 9 of your children survive was quite good.
