Dolly (or Dollie) Rose Goulstone (1904-1993) was the adopted daughter of Walter and Amelia Goulstone of Weston. Apparently the Goulstones ran a restaurant called Goulstone's at 32 Regent Street in Weston.
Walter John Goulstone was born in 1861 in Bath and married Fanny Holtrom (1857–1920).in Bath. After Fanny's death, in 1921 he married Amelia Ellen Dade Hill (1872–1937), whom he met through their membership of the Salvation Army. He died 6 May 1936 and is buried in Weston.
Dollie was an Armenian refugee from the Turkish genocide of her people. From her death certificate, her original name seems to have been Semaghoul (or Senaghoul) Marusajian. From the London Gazette, 5 Feb 1935, she received British citizenship on 19 January 1935.
I (as a small boy) knew Dolly Goulstone when my family went to Weston for summer and Christmas holidays in the 1950s. She was a long-term resident with my great-great aunts, Hannah and Aggie Ritchie, who ran a boarding house at Maycot, 12 Beaufort Road, Weston. (Please see my notes under Ritchie for more about them.) Dolly was totally blind. Although she wasn't related to me, I knew her as Auntie Dolly. I have her recorded as living later at 33 Milton Brow, Weston, although I don't remember meeting her there. She died in Plymouth at Pocklington Rise, George Lane, Plympton, Plymouth, apparently sheltered housing for those with sight loss.
My father knew Dolly from his visits when he first met my mother at Maycot and our family holidays. He told me what he can remember of her. He says she was blinded in a massacre of Armenians.
My father was called up in 1942, and after being at the liberation of Rome he was sent for mountain warfare training in Lebanon. He had some time off in Jerusalem and on Dolly's behalf he went by bus to Ramallah to see a friend of hers who was a fellow survivor of the incident. The friend is probably Miss S.A. Ketchijian and she was running a school for blind children where both she and Dolly had been pupils. |