Reeves, Norman Chester

Norman was born in King’s Norton which was in Worcestershire until 1912 and Warwickshire between 1912 and 1924.
His father, Charles, was recorded in the 1891 census as a tobacconist and journalist and his mother, Ada, as a tobacconist’s assistant. At the time they had a baby daughter Ada Irene (born that year) and a servant living in.

At the time of the 1901 census, Ada, now a widow living on her own means, was living in King’s Norton with her daughter and a servant. Norman (7) was with a Joseph Reeves (32) visiting Ruth Cheatle in Lyddington, Rutland (Joseph subsequently married Maud Cheatle). The relationship between Joseph Reeves and Norman is unclear since there was no younger brother in the Reeves’s household in 1881 or 1871.

Ada Reeves married John Cantrill in Worcester in 1903 and they had a son, Leslie John, in 1904. At the time of the 1911 census, Norman was living with his stepfather John Cantrill and stepbrother Leslie at Vine Cottage, Salford Priors, Warwickshire. His mother was not present on census night. Norman, aged 17, was working as a blacksmith.

Norman’s sister, Ada Irene, married Francis Simmons in 1914.
The army records show that Norman’s effects at his death were split between his mother and his sister.