When other girls were thinking of marriage, Smith talked of challenges and adventures that arose from her attitude of "stubborn independence", and often said that she never wanted to get married because she hated the idea of being "tied to the kitchen sink". Friends of Lennon later stated that his aunt based everything on decorum, honesty, and a black-and-white attitude: "Either you were good enough or you were not." Annie Stanley died in 1941, and Mimi accepted the responsibility of caring for her father with help from Julia. According to Beatles biographer Bob Spitz, Mimi assumed a matriarchal role in the Stanley house to help her mother, and dressed "as if she was on her way to a weekly garden club meeting". He moved his family to the Liverpool suburb of Allerton, where they lived in a small terraced house at 9 Newcastle Road. After the birth of his daughters, Stanley stopped going to sea and got a job with the Liverpool and Glasgow Tug Salvage Company as an insurance investigator. Mimi was the couple's first daughter, born seven months before her parents married. Stanley was a merchant seaman often away at sea so was absent from some census records. George Ernest Stanley and Annie Millward were married at St Peter's Church, Liverpool (since demolished) on 19 November 1906. By 1891 the Stanleys were living in Upper Frederick Street, south of the city centre, in the same inner city area of Liverpool as the family of George's future wife, Annie Jane Millward, who was born in Chester in 1873 to Welsh parents. Smith's father, George Ernest Stanley, was born in the Everton district of Liverpool in 1874 to William Henry Stanley and Eliza Jane Gildea Eliza was born in Omagh, County Tyrone, Ulster, Ireland. Smith's grandfather was born in Birmingham and her great grandfather was born in London. William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby, did once own the manorial rights to Woolton but Lennon's Stanley family were from humbler origins and only came to Liverpool in the 1870s. The Stanley family 9 Newcastle Road, Liverpool the former home of the Stanley familyĪccording to Lennon, the Stanley family once owned the whole of Woolton village. The Smiths' house in Liverpool was later donated to The National Trust. Despite later losing touch with other family members, he kept in close contact with Mimi and telephoned her every week until his death in 1980. In 1965, John bought her a bungalow in Poole, Dorset, where she lived until her death in 1991. She often told the teenage Lennon: "The guitar's all right, John, but you'll never make a living out of it". He lived with the Smiths for most of his childhood and remained close to his aunt, even though she was highly dismissive of his musical ambitions, his girlfriends and wives. Julia was eventually persuaded to hand over the care of John to the Smiths. On 15 September 1939 she married George Toogood Smith who ran his family's dairy farm and a shop in Woolton, a suburb of Liverpool.Īfter her younger sister Julia Lennon separated from her husband, Julia and her son, the young John Lennon, moved in with a new partner, but Smith contacted Liverpool's Social Services and complained about his sleeping in the same bed as the two adults. She became a resident trainee nurse at the Woolton Convalescent Hospital and later worked as a private secretary. Mimi Stanley was born in Toxteth, Liverpool, England, the oldest of five daughters. Mary Elizabeth "Mimi" Smith ( née Stanley 24 April 1906 – 6 December 1991) was a maternal aunt and the parental guardian of the English musician John Lennon.
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