Nancy De Garrs, Bradford Whorty

The Telegraph & Argus publishes more information on the Nancy DeGarrs-Undercliffe Cemetery connection:
Picture Source

Nancy De Garrs was quite a ‘celebrity’ in Bradford Workhouse.
While other inmates sat on wooden benches, Nancy had her own armchair. There was much interest in the old lady who had been the Brontë family’s nanny, and she was visited by journalists keen to interview the last person to know the famous literary sisters.
Nancy loved to talk about her time with the Brontës. But with old age, and poverty, came a fear of ending up in a pauper's grave. When Nancy told the Pall Mall Gazette it was her last request to avoid such a fate, the London newspaper appealed for public donations so she could have a decent burial. It was taken up by other newspapers, including the New York Times. How much was raised isn’t clear. A 'typo' in a Manchester newspaper meant that some of the money was sent to Bedford workhouse, instead of Bradford...
And when Nancy died in 1886, aged 82, she was buried at Undercliffe Cemetery, in an unmarked grave costing just a guinea. For over 130 years she has laid in the weed-choked plot. Now she has been added to a list of ‘Bradford Worthies’ buried at the cemetery, and finally she is to have a headstone. “Nancy has been hidden all these years. We want to acknowledge her part in Brontë history,” says Allan Hillary, chairman of the Friends of Undercliffe Cemetery which is appealing for help to raise £3,000 for a headstone and to clear the area around the grave. Allan hopes it will become part of the Brontë Trail, attracting more visitors to the historic cemetery.
Stephen Lightfoot came across Nancy in newspaper archives. He and other cemetery volunteers spent six months researching her and, after finding her plot in burial records, cleared the waist-high overgrowth from it. “Nancy was a faithful servant of the Brontës for eight years and had a significant impact on the children,” says Stephen. “As well as the daily routine of looking after them, she took them for moorland walks and was involved in their play and early stories. The rich and famous are always remembered, but Nancy is representative of ordinary working people not always recognised.”
One of 12 children of a Bradford shoemaker, Nancy is remembered for another reason too - she restored Patrick Brontë’s reputation at a time when history was re-written. (...)
Nancy's story will be included in a "Bradford Worthies" tour at Undercliffe Cemetery in September. Also that month, Bradford actress and writer Irene Lofthouse will be talking about Nancy's life in character.(Emma Clayton) (Read more)

What can I give a child to help them with losing a parent? A hard question in The Guardian:

For some children, reading itself will be the great comfort, particularly reading about children in bleak circumstances. In Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, the heroine has, by the end of chapter one, lost her mother to cholera. Beth’s death in Louisa May Alcott’s Good Wives is unfailingly moving – sentimentality can be medicinal. Jane Eyre’s orphaned plight might also sustain – Charlotte Brontë is the safest pair of hands. (Kate Kellaway)

The Idaho Press interviews the author Lois Requist:

Jeanne Huff: What’s on your bookshelf?
LR: I’ve thinned it out in recent years, though I still have one “Bobbsey Twin” book from 1947 and a copy of “Jane Eyre” from 1945.

The Times recommends a concert of The Unthanks in Dublin:

The Unthanks
Led by Tyneside sisters Rachel and Becky Unthank, this English folk group have released a plethora of critically acclaimed records, including Cruel Sister, their debut collection, which was Mojo magazine’s folk album of the year for 2005. Combining indigenous Northumbrian sounds with other genres, the eclectic band examined subjects as diverse as the First World War and Emily Brontë’s poems in their recent Lines trilogy. (Mel Clarke)

The restoration of an upstate New York barn into a family home in Architectural Digest:

I also knew I wanted to indulge my wallpaper fetish. Fornasetti’s blustery, surreal clouds—Wuthering Heights in a wall covering, says a friend—blow you into the great room from the front door. (Mieke ten Have)

Prensa Libre (Argentina) supposedly quotes from Charlotte Brontë describing Queen Victoria in her visit to Brussels in 1843. Regrettably, the quote has only a remote resemblance with the original one. The Stage Mirror publishes a response to Kathleen Stock's post Is Jane Eyre a Racist?, which was also a response to a previous article about reading Jane Eyre as a black person.