ZEEBRAZONE

10:35am Saturday 4th December 2010

ONE of York’s biggest families has said farewell to an 89-year-old great-great grandmother.

Widow Ethel Mason, of Tang Hall, who died just two months short of her 90th birthday, had an astonishing tally of 129 family members.

They were: • Eight children – Charles, Rosie, Ronnie, Terry, Keith, Sylvia, Janet and Carol.

•31 Grandchildren.

•69 Great-grandchildren •And 22 Great-great-grandchildren.

Many members of the family attended her funeral earlier this week at St Lawrence’s Church in Lawrence Street, despite the appalling winter weather, said Charles, of Deighton, near York.

“There was standing room only, and it’s a big church, and it was standing room only once again up at the crematorium,” he said. “That shows how much she meant to people. One cousin drove up from London to Harrogate to bring her sister over to the funeral, and then drove her back to Harrogate before going back to London in that terrible weather.”

He said his mother had always been at the centre of the family, and no day would pass without a stream of visitors to her home in Barstow Avenue, where she lived for about 66 years.

“There would always be a dozen or so people there, and the kettle would be on, and she loved it.

“I used to say ‘you should put up a café sign!’”

He said that at Christmas, Ethel had always had a gift for every member of the family in each generation until they left school, and she herself was showered with scores of presents. Family members had to take it in turns to visit her at Christmas and birthdays.

Parish priest, Father Tim Jones, said it was the largest family gathering for a funeral he had ever witnessed.