Memories of Emma Elizabeth Fountain (nee Margetts) by Cicely Ursula Keene (nee Knight) in 2010
Emma Elizabeth Fountain (nee Margetts) lived in Crabb Street. She was the headmistress of a local school. Her young man, Alfred Chapman Fountain, was allowed to go to tea every Sunday but her mother refused to let them marry. They waited nearly 40 years until Ellen had died, and they married in 1923. They had just seven years together before Alfred died early in 1930. I was taken to visit Emma each week in the late 1920s and 1930s, when she was rather eccentric. She would not have a frying pan in the house; she insisted that the lighting was by oil lamp and not gas or electricity. When the coalman was due she would mark, with chalk, in the coal house where she considered each large lump of coal would go and oversaw him doing this!
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Four nightdresses and two petticoats in her trousseau were passed to Mabel Gladys Knight (nee Colson) (Grandmother of Cicely Ursula). Mabel met Emma when she was a trainee teacher and they remained friends. Mabel was Executrix of Emma’s will.
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Notes: Emma Elizabeth Margetts was born in 1865 in Rushden, daughter of John & Ellen. Both her brothers died, Henry John in 1882 aged 14 and Frederick John in 1884 aged 20. Her father John died in 1892 aged 51. Alfred Chapman Fountain was born in 1856, died 1930.
Emma was a pupil teacher in 1883, at the mixed school at Alfred Street. In 1886 she was classed as "experienced pupil teacher" in the year report. In 1911 she resigned her post and was given a testimonial. (School Board report) In October 1914 Emma made a collection to buy soldiers' comforts.
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