Alice Hyde (nee Lee) The Miss Pictures Girl 1919

                                              Alice Hyde (aka Lavender Lee) 18/07/1894- 07/1993

                                                                     The Pictures Girl 

It is not often that someone gets to research a topic that sits firmly within the cultural history field as an archaeologist, more used to field excavations,  but I have been doubly honoured.   Firstly, as an opportunity to diversify my business interests and secondly to learn new skills in the process.

This project started out, as sometimes projects do, as a short exercise I set my daughter to explore her roots for an open project set by her school.  It facilitated a means to give her a sense of place and pride after several incidents of bullying which left her soul bruised and her sense of worth in her boots. 

The more we researched, the more questions formed, and soon, we both realised that this could become an excellent subject matter for a book.  So after a great deal of encouragement, we embarked in 2014 on a research project into our Grandmother, Alice Hyde (nee Lee).  This blog is set up to record our findings as our research progresses to publicise our work.

I am not trained in genealogy and initially, I was somewhat overwhelmed by the length and breadth of the research to be undertaken, having never attempted writing a book before.  I decided that I would tackle it just like any research undertaken before I wrote an essay or something for publication.  

As I cast my mind back to the young twelve-year-old girl, (to get an impression of my grandmother, before I went online to research her) who first met her Grandma Alice, at her home in Leominster in Shropshire.   I remember a frail lady, slightly stooped with a shock of white hair and once vibrant grey-blue eyes long dimmed by age looking at me in bewilderment, she smiled a polite but confused smile and hesitated to respond until she was gently reminded that I was her son Ivan's daughter.  My father warned me prior to our visit some days before the visit that my grandmother was suffering from Alzheimer's and although it had not completely destroyed her cognitive abilities, I was warned that she would fade in and out of lucidity at times.  

Armed with this knowledge we visited her. Unfortunately, it is sometimes a curse of divorce that one or the other side of the family loses touch and so, I was not aware of my father's side of the family or my famous grandmother and acting family (albeit on a small scale) until I re-connected with my father when I was twelve. 

Above is the first piece I found published about my grandmother Alice.  I was struck by how beautiful and clearly a gifted actress she had been, despite a time when filmmaking was in its infancy.  Alice was chosen out of around 9,000 entrants and unlike today's pageants, entrants back in the early 20th century were required to be skilled in acting, rowing, riding, and swimming in addition to being aspiring entrepreneurs.  Alice was described by someone as yet unidentified, as DB, perhaps a talent scout, as a 'clever poseur' with the "strength of a lion and ambition to succeed in acting". I often wondered what a 'clever poseur' was and how it related to acting, but as I discovered acting in Silent Films is a skill and an art in speaking with one's body in the absence of sound, which was to come later. 

So, with the first report on my grandmother, it gave me an indication of where to look for more information and where to direct my research. So the next blog installment will look at some of Alice's early life and background.