Adele Emelie Forget-Topham 1866-1959
England

Adele Emelie, or Emilie, said Mimi, born 20 october 1866, Garston, Lancashire, was the daughter of Charles Forget living in Liverpool and Louisa Frederique Bourgeois from Switzerland.
She married 1890 Edwin Henry Topham, son of Dr John Topham, married Emma Harriet Ward, grandson of Reverend John Topham married 1820 Isabella Bowes.
She died 1959, King's farm, little Shelford, near Cambridge.
Her children were;
1) Doris Marguerite TOPHAM, born May 30, 1893 in Bideford, Devon, England died February 19, 1980, Montreal, married August 25 1920 Shenley England, Joseph Harrison MACFARLANE born July 19, 1895, Montréal, died March 4, 1969, Montreal.
2) Adele Nelia Topham married Henry Peter George BAYON.

Adèle Emelie (Mimi) Forget

daughter of Charles Forget, Banker of Liverpool & Geneva, and Louisa Bourgeois of Giez Yverdon Bonvillars, Switzerland, was born in 1866 in Garston, Lancashire.
She married Edwin Henry Topham in December 1889.
There is a touching photo album which records their courtship.
Mimi had three children. Her eldest was my grandmother, Adèle Nelia who married Henry Peter Bayon. Her second child was Doris Marguerite who married Joseph Harrison Macfarlane and moved to Canada, and the third was Denis Bevan, whom we believe did not marry.
The family travelled every summer to the South of France, and there is a letter dated 9th November 1923 to E.H. Topham addressed to Villa Haute Rive, Cannes. They may have owned a home in Cannes because these pilgrimages continued at least up to Edwin’s death on 12th May 1935. We still have the "summer" curtains from those trips.
Unfortunately nothing is known (by myself or my immediate family) about my great-grandmother’s childhood.
Following Edwin’s death, she lived with her daughter, Adele (Bobby) - lastly at King’s Farm, Little Shelford. (Little Shelford is a small village five miles south of Cambridge, England.)
One of Bobby’s fond memories was of great-granny at 90 saying to her "you are a wonderful old stick for your age".
My recollections of Mimi commence when she was in her 80s. She used to sit on the veranda at King’s Farm, Little Shelford, shelling peas with my grandmother and us children. The peas were brought in by the barrowload from our well-maintained vegetable garden, and some were eaten fresh and the rest frozen.
Later Mimi fell down the stairs and broke her hip. Consequently she was bedridden for the last years of her life. She was a very elegant and frail, and lay in a large, slightly dark, bedroom which was filled with all sorts of mementos from her past. She had a cabinet of trinkets and would delight in telling us their histories and the memories they evoked.
She was very kind with us children and as we chattered she listened patiently. To signal the end of the visit she would direct us to an armoire and tell us to take one of the delicious boiled fruit sweets which were individually and beautifully packaged.
I have two particularly striking memories of her.
The first was her amazing deftness at shuffling playing cards. She was able to create an accordian of cards in the air.
The other was of the black ivory-tipped cigarette holder in which she smoked half a cigarette at a time.
These "props" gave her a slightly rakish air, which I think was more prompted by her sense of humour, than any reality.
Mimi is buried in the churchyard in Little Shelford.

memories of Adele Nelia Bayon, nee Forget
dictated to her grand-daughter, Janice Coward 1 - 2

Adele Emelie Forget-Topham 1866-1959

photograph may have been taken at Shenley (Herts)
Joan Nelia Topham Bayon, who is riding on her back
photograph kindly forwarded by Francis des Rosiers

Francis des Rosiers and Nanoo

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