Johanna Lytle (1870 – 1951)
In 1979 ‘Family Researchers Limited’ wrote to both Ed Lytle and his cousin John regarding the estate of Miss Johanna Lytle:
“In connection with administering an estate, our services have been enlisted and are being paid for by the Executor Bank towards endeavouring to contact any cousins of a Miss Johanna Lytle who died in 1951 aged 81 years she being the daughter of John Lytle a wholesale Grain Merchant and Isabella Jane Brown Lytle (who died in 1933 when of Beresford Road, Oxton, Birkenhead). May we enquire whether you recognise yourself to be in any way connected? Should you not be, perhaps you would care to advise us accordingly so that we do not trouble you again. Otherwise we shall be glad to receive confirmation of your relationship and for the opportunity to correspond more fully.
The reason for our approach is in order that our client Bank can ascertain who may be entitled to share in some Trust Funds.”
This John Lytle maybe the same man who turns up again in Ruth’s story of her friend Miss Walls.
Ed replied to Family Researchers:
“My father Edward Arthur Lytle (known as Arthur Lytle) was born 5th Dec. 1871 and died in February, 1952. His mother died when he was 3 and his father John Lytle, Master Carter, died when he was 5 years of age.
Their surviving children John, Edward Arthur, Alfred, and Margaret who went to live in the U.S.A. some 40/50 years ago, were brought up by relatives.
My Father lived with his Uncle, named Scantlebury, who owned several Fruit and Vegetable shops in the Everton District. At 15 he ran away to sea and lived in the Southern States of America for about 5 years before returning via Canada to Liverpool.
When he was 25 he joined the Liverpool Town Mission (now the City Mission) and served as a City Missionary in the notorious Scotland Road area before being moved to Anfield, Wavertree, etc. and as Missionary to the Police and the Blind Workshops. He completed 50 years before he retired.
I mention these details because some relatives were strongly against him becoming a Missionary and he was deprived of inheritances which he would otherwise have been given. Unfortunately I have no details of relatives, or even my grandfather’s birth certificate.
On the 8th April 1900, when he was living at 71, Robson Street, Everton he married Annah Hopkins at the Parish Church of Walton on the Hill, Liverpool, and had four children namely Margaret, Edward Arthur (myself), Annie and Lilian. Margaret and Annie died without issue.
I know that my Uncle Alfred, and probably John, tried unsuccessfully to obtain money or Trust Funds but their Uncle Scantlebury defeated them. At the time my father was blamed by them for not adequately supporting their case but he was simply not interested in obtaining money, but devoted all his life to his Missionary work.”
[NOTE: Further research has not discovered a sister although there appears to have been a cousin Margaret.]
Ed discovered that the present Lytle family had no knowledge of Johanna and Isabella.
This enquiry must have piqued Ed’s interest in his family, because he then carried out extensive research of his own on the family, by transcribing birth and marriage certificates and attempting to write a Family Tree. He and his cousin John talked about their shared handed-down memories, and his notes (see below) were passed down the family.
“I have told Family Researchers that Uncle John’s son Daniel Leslie Lytle lives at 10 Thornton Road, Liverpool L16 2LS.
Uncle Alfred and perhaps John, tried I believe to recover some moneys held by their Uncle Scantlebury and it may be that Uncle Alfred had the Birth and Marriage Certificates of our Grandfather etc. and had some knowledge of relatives.
I had a visit from Uncle John’s son John Taylor Lytle who had received a similar letter from Researchers Ltd. I had forgotten, but he has been partially sighted since birth and was sent to a special school and then worked at the Blind Workshops. He is 63 and lives with his daughter and son-in-law at Childwall. Fortunately he seems to have a good memory and knows a lot more of the family “gossip” than me and much of the details given are from him.
Whether all the information is quite accurate is another matter. For instance, Alfred’s Birth Certificate shows my Grandfather to have been John Lytle, Jr. which suggests that my Great Grandfather was John Lytle also, but he thought it was Joseph, and he may be right if “Jr.” was used differently in those days.
As a matter of interest he gave me a photograph of Uncle John Taylor and Uncle Alfred standing outside their own Fruit and Vegetable Shop with the name John and Alfred Lytle printed on the window.
I do remember seeing the photograph many years ago and their features are clearly recognizable.
I have a copy of the Border Records of the Lytils provided by Family Researchers Limited.”
[NOTE: In 2018 we discovered an entry in the probate register for Johanna Lytle and traced her ancestors but have not yet confirmed any link between her and John Lytle Sr.]