Violet Kreiser (16th July 1913 - 2nd January 2006)

 

Violet was born Violet Eugenie Tinsey on 16th July 1913 in Acocks Green, Birmingham. Her father was a tax inspector and was moved around the country at regular intervals. Her childhood and adolescence were therefore spent in a number of different locations: Newton Abbot, Godalming, Bournemouth and Harrow. She had a younger brother, Tom, who died in 1947 and a younger sister, Yvonne. The family were living in Shrewsbury when she was married to Fred Kreiser in 1941. They subsequently all moved down to London (Upper Norwood).

 

In 1955 Fred and Violet moved to Woldingham, to Hillslea Cottage, and in 1957 their daughter Annette was born. Fred and Violet lived together there until 1987 when Fred died. Violet remained at Hillslea Cottage until ill health necessitated her move to Woodland Nursing Home late in 1999.

 

Violet was a very artistic person, music, art and craft all played an enormous part in her life. She started to play the piano as a small child and continued to play, with great expression, throughout her life until the arthritis in her hands became too severe. She helped set up the Woldingham Music Society and was its secretary for many years. She also had a talent for a wide range of art and craft. She enjoyed painting in oils and watercolours but was also very critical of her efforts and she only considered a few paintings good enough to keep. However, it was in needlework that she truly excelled producing, amongst so many projects, exquisite embroidered jewellery boxes and a unique collection of historical costume dolls which she both built and dressed herself. She was also a skilled dressmaker and every year in the weeks before Christmas she was much in demand as she converted scraps of clothes and fabrics into costumes for the Woldingham pantomime. She was always happy to share her skills and ran classes on various crafts as well as being a core member of the Woldingham Wl's handicraft group.

 

Another important part of her life was gardening, a love she inherited from her mother. Although they moved house so often during her childhood she said they always inherited a wilderness for a garden and left it packed with flowers. At Hillslea Cottage much of her summer was spent in the large garden growing flowers, fruit and vegetables. Naturally, with so many plants to hand she also enjoyed flower arranging and was a regular participant in the Woldingham Horticultural Society's summer and autumn shows.

 

Unfortunately chronic asthma restricted physical activity throughout much of her life, indeed threatening her life on several occasions and it was only with the advent of better medication in recent years that asthma ceased to dominate her life. When she was in her 80s she was diagnosed with diabetes and this led eventually to the loss of her left leg and so she sold Hillslea Cottage and she moved to Woodland Nursing Home in Caterham. She could no longer play the piano by this time but she still enjoyed listening to music and for a while her arthritic hands allowed her to continue some craft work. However; as her arthritis and deafness progressed, her music and handicrafts inevitably came to an end. Instead she turned to reading for stimulation. She enjoyed reading a wide range of books - biography, travel and poetry as well as fiction and managed to keep up reading until the last month of her life.

 

Having had a number of crises of ill health throughout her life she was surprised when she reached the milestone of 90 years. "Creaky doors hang longest" she said, remembering a saying of her grandmothers. Those who knew her would say that it was her spirit, her great determination and humour which kept her going for so long. She died at Woodland Nursing Home on 2 January 2006.

 

Annette Kreiser