South Yorkshire Times, October 9th 1943
Mexborough Nonagenarian
Mrs Hemingway Cuts her 90th Birthday Cake
A well-known and respected Mexborough resident, Mrs. Hannah Hemingway, celebrated her ninetieth birthday on Saturday when she held a birthday party for friends and relatives at her home, 57, Main Street. Mrs. Hemingway received a great many greeting cards and gifts and a giant birthday cake from her daughter with whom she lives.
A native of Cowick, near Goole, Mrs. Hemingway came to Mexborough about 47 years ago, and for nearly 80 years lived at number 37, Garden Street. She then went to live in Main Street with her daughter and her son, Mr. George Hemingway, a well-known Mexborough saddler.
She has four daughters, four sons, 21 grandchildren, and seven greatgrandchildren, The ages of her children total 433 years. Nine of Mrs. Hemingway’s grandsons are serving in H.M. Forces. Peter Burley, a grandson, is in the Navy.
She has been a supporter of St. George’s Church for very many years as was her husband, Mr. James Hemingway, who died 27 years ago. Mr. Hemingway was best known as a breeder of hackneys and show horses. When a “Times” reporter visited Mrs. Hemingway this week she was enjoying a good dinner and said she felt “very well.” Her youngest son, Mr. Ralph Hemingway, learned the glass trade at Waddington’s and later studied at Sheffield University. He is now a Colonel in the Home Guard.
When Mrs. Hemingway’s father, the late Mr. John Norwood, kept the Fox Gate Inn at Cowick, Mrs. Hemingway, then a little girl, used to walk four miles to Thorne to buy “Bell’s Life,” a sixpenny weekly published by the same firm which own the ‘“News of the World,” this week celebrating its hundredth year of publication. Her father was a farmer and was the only one in the neighbourhood of Fox Gate Inn who could read. Farmers gathered in the inn while Mr. Norwood read them the news from “Bell’s Life.” The happy memories which Mrs. Hemingway has of her childhood days are often related to friends who visit her home.