MEMORIES is delighted that a bundle of family photos which went missing many years ago have now been returned to the owner.

A Chronicle reader, who formerly lived in Monk Bretton, received them in the post but he did not recognise them and was not able to find the owner.

He brought them into the Chronicle offices in the hope that we could find that person. Shortly after publication of four of the photographs in the Chronicle’s Memories column, we heard from Lynne Watson who told us that the photographs belonged to her 84-year-old mother Elsie Rhodes (nee Jackson).

It appears that Elsie had loaned the photographs to a family member. They had been returned to her, but the photographs had, apparently, ended up at the wrong address.

“My mother is thrilled to have the photographs back. “Understandably, they are very precious to her and she thought she would never get them back.

“It’s a mystery what happened and my mother would like to thank the kind gent who brought them into the Chronicle offices,” said Lynne.

Two of the many photographs were of an Uncle Joseph and his wife, Jane, who lived in the USA. Lynne explained that Uncle Joseph was the son of Benjamin and Mary Elizabeth Holler who emigrated to America in 1912 with five of their seven surviving children, Bill, Frank, Lily, Mary and Joseph.

Their other daughter, Maria, stayed in England with her new husband, Harry Jackson. They went on to have three children, Elsie Rhodes (nee Jackson) and Walter and Vera, now both deceased.

To keep Elsie in touch with her relatives in America, Uncle Joseph sent her lots of photos over the years and they were her only means of knowing what they looked like.