Horace and Euphemia Bullock

My Nana, Euphemia, met Horace Yelland Bullock when she was employed to nurse him, in 1912. He had Rheumatic Fever and then developed Pericarditis, which nearly cost him his life. I actually found a doctors letter that talks about it and the fact that he had RF again during 1916 too. When he was well and ‘Ritchie’, as he called her, was about to leave, he had a relapse but his sister Edith discovered that it was a rouse to keep the woman he had fallen in love with, close by.
At this time Euphemia had a huge decision to make … Her young niece wrote to her, begging her to come and nurse her mother who was dying from Cancer. This was Euphemia’s oldest sister, Jessie, who lived in Canada. She knew that if she went, the separation could have a terrible effect on Horace’s health and as he had proposed and she had accepted, she used the wedding plans as an excuse not to go. Her sister died soon after and her niece did not communicate with her for about 40 years.
Once she was betrothed to Horace (Bully as she affectionately called him), she was able to continue to work as a private nurse for other families until their marriage at the end of 1913. Her last post was with Lord and Lady Howard de Walden, who gave her a Crown Derby coffee set as a Wedding gift. She treasured this all her life and proudly kept it on show, in a glass china cabinet.

If you look closely at the Wedding Party above, you can see two servants in the back row but in prime position, in the front row, sits Horace’s mother. There was none of Euphemia’s family there, possibly due to her not going to nurse her sister but it could have been the distance as Fife to London was a long journey. The ladies to the right of her are nursing colleagues. The one in the middle, with all the feathers round her hat, was a matron and it was she who gave her away.

Thank you for reading this.
Take care xx