Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Catherine was born in 1882 in Islington to Conrad Mager (a baker) and Magdalena Fett. Both her parents had been born in Germany. On 15th July 1906 she married Clifford Frank Rolfe in West Ham, Essex. He was a carpenter. In July 1908 she gave birth to their son Clifford Conrad. The 1911 census shows her and her husband, both aged 29 and living in West Ham with Clifford who was two years old.  The following year they had a daughter, Kathleen Frances, born on 25th August and baptised at St Mary the Virgin, Plaistow on 20th October 1912. In 1936 her husband Clifford died aged 54 and is buried in Newham. It is 1939 when they appear in Berkhamsted. Catherine and her son are living in No 22 Castle St, effectively as lodgers, as William Foster, the master baker, is head of the household; her son Clifford is a baker. She is recorded as having ‘unpaid domestic duties’. Presumably it was the son’s occupation that had brought them to the town from West Ham. Her daughter Kathleen was not with them. In 1941 she married John Edward Sparkes. Catherine died on 8th October 1952 aged 70, at Napsbury Hospital, St Albans.  Her address at the time was 15 Woodlands Avenue, Berkhamsted. Probate was granted to her son Clifford Conrad Rolfe, by then an insurance agent. She was buried in Rectory Lane Cemetery and 16 years later was joined by ‘dearest Johnnie, son-in-law’.