I wrote an AI-assisted couple biography for my third great-grandfather John Richman (1788-1867) in ABC Biography of #40 John Richman (1788-1867) of Hilperton, Wiltshire, based on my genealogical research over 37 years.
I wondered what John Richman might say in a life memoir to his grandchildren in 1867.
(AI NotebookLM Infographic of the life of John Richman)
1) Based on the genealogical sketch, I requested Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5 to create a memoir told by Torger Leland about his life in 1932. The prompt was: "Please write a life memoir for John Richman based on the attached biography, as he might tell to his grandchildren in 1867."
2) The AI Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5 memoir (lightly edited for accuracy) is:
The Remembrances of John Richman
As told to his granddaughter Rosa
Thompson in Hilperton, early 1867
My dear Rosa, and all you grandchildren who may one day read these
words, I am an old man now, nearly eighty winters have I seen, and my
bones grow weary. I sit here in our cottage in Hilperton Marsh, the
place where I have spent the whole of my long life, and I feel the
weight of years upon me. Your grandmother Ann has been gone these
eleven years now, God rest her soul, and I miss her voice in the
evening and her hands at the loom. But before I join her in St.
Michael's churchyard, I would have you know something of our lives,
of where you come from, and of the world that made us.
My Early Years
I was born, so far as I can reckon, in the year 1788, right here
in Hilperton. My father was John Richman, a laboring man, and my
mother was Mary Parsons before she wed. We were not grand folk, you
understand—we worked with our hands, as our fathers had done, and
their fathers before them. Sometimes the name was writ down as "Rich"
instead of "Richman," but it's all the same family. We
Richmans have been in these parts for generations, working the land
and the looms, living by the strength of our backs and the skill of
our fingers.
I had brothers and sisters—Thomas, Joseph, Mary, Ann, William,
and others who didn't survive their childhood, as was common in those
times. We grew up knowing that life was hard, that hunger was never
far away, and that a working man must take whatever labor he could
find to keep his family fed.
I cannot write my name, Rosa, as you well know. When the curate
asked me to sign the parish register on my wedding day, I could only
make my mark—an X, same as your grandmother. We were not schooled
as children are now. Our learning was in the work—how to card wool,
how to work the loom, how to judge the weight of a sack of coal or
the quality of a joint of meat. These things I know well, even if
letters remain a mystery to me. So thank you for writing these
ramblings down.
Courting and Marriage
I first knew your grandmother Ann Marshman when we were both young
folk in Hilperton. She was born over in Devizes, but her family—the
Marshmans—lived here after that, and her father John was a weaver
like so many of us. Her mother Anne died when Ann was still young,
which taught her early what sorrow was. Ann was a good, steady girl,
hardworking at the loom, and I thought myself fortunate when she
agreed to become my wife.
We were married by banns on the eighth of February, 1811, at St.
Michael's Church just up the way. It was a cold winter day, I
remember, but we were warm with happiness. Ann's brother Thomas stood
witness for us, and the curate Bailes performed the service. We both
made our marks in the register—two X's side by side—and became
man and wife. I was not yet twenty-three years old, and Ann was near
twenty-seven. We had nothing but our youth and our willingness to
work, but it seemed enough.
Our Children
The Lord blessed us with eight children, though not all of them
lived to grow old. Your grandmother and I, we did our best by them,
working every day to keep food on the table and a roof over their
heads.
Our firstborn was Elizabeth, born in 1811, the very year we wed.
She's living still in Hilperton, married to Thomas Hogan, and she
learned the weaving trade from her mother. Then came Sarah in 1814,
who married James Thompson and went to live in Bath for a time. They
have four children, you and your sisters. John, our first son, was born in
1816 and married Maria Matthews—they had seven children and live
nearby in Bradford on Avon.
We had another daughter Ann in 1818, and then James in 1821—ah,
James! He was always a restless one, that boy. Married Hannah Rich in
1845, and they had nine children. But England was not big enough to
hold James's ambitions, and in 1855 he took his whole family across
the ocean to America. They settled in a place called Connecticut, in
a town named Putnam. We got letters from him for a time, telling of
the new world, the opportunities there. It pained your grandmother
terribly to see him go so far away, knowing she would never lay eyes
on him or his children again. But a man must make his way in the
world as he sees fit.
Thomas was born in 1823, a fine strong boy. But he took sick and
died in 1844, only twenty-one years old. We buried him in St.
Michael's churchyard. That was a hard blow for your grandmother and
me. You raise a child, you watch him grow, you imagine his future—and
then he's taken from you. Your grandmother wept for weeks.
We also had two little girls both named Mary. The first Mary was
born in 1823, same year as Thomas—they were twins, you see. She
lived only a year or so before the Lord took her. We named our next
daughter Mary as well, in 1825, but she lived only two months. Two
little Marys in the churchyard, their graves marked with small
stones. Those losses—well, they were not uncommon in those days,
but they were no easier to bear for being common. Your grandmother
never spoke much of them, but I know she carried the grief of those
babies all her days.
The Work of Our Lives
I have worked many trades in my lifetime, Rosa. When I was young,
I learned weaving, as most folk did in these parts. Trowbridge and
Bradford-on-Avon and Hilperton—all these towns lived by the wool
trade. The great mills with their machinery have changed things, but
in my youth, many homes had looms, and the sound of the shuttle was
as common as birdsong. Your grandmother Ann was a skilled weaver all
her life. Even when I had turned to other work, she kept at the loom,
her fingers quick and sure.
But weaving alone didn't always put bread on the table, especially
as the mills grew bigger and took away the work from cottage weavers.
So I labored as well—digging, hauling, whatever was needed. For
some years I was a coal hauler, carrying sacks of coal from the boats
on the canal to homes and shops. It was hard work, Rosa, dirty work
that blackened your clothes and your lungs, but it paid.
Later, I learned the butcher's trade. I had some skill with
animals and with the knife, and butchering was steadier work than
hauling coal. By the time of the 1851 census—when the government
man came round asking questions—I was able to say I was a butcher.
It's honest work, providing meat for folk's tables, and I've done it
these past years as well as I was able.
Life in Hilperton Marsh
We have lived all our married life here in Hilperton Marsh, in
this cottage and these lanes. Marsh Lane, they call it, for the wet
ground hereabouts. It floods when the rains are heavy, and in winter
the cold seeps up through the floor. But it has been our home, and we
have raised our family here.
The cottage is small and plain, but it has sheltered us through
fifty-six years of marriage. When the children were young, it was
crowded—eight children in these rooms, with the loom taking up
space, and all the noise and bustle of family life. Now it's quiet,
perhaps too quiet for an old man alone.
We've seen changes in the village, Rosa. The great families come
and go from their estates, the canal brought new commerce, the mills
grew bigger. But for folk like us, life goes on much the same—work
and worship, birth and death, the turning of the seasons.
Hard Times and Faith
I will not pretend to you that life has been easy. There were
years when work was scarce and food scarcer. There were winters when
we went to bed cold and hungry. There were times when your
grandmother and I wondered how we would feed all those children, how
we would keep them clothed and warm.
After your grandmother died in 1856, I fell on hard times. In the
1861 census—that's six years ago now—I was listed as a pauper.
It's not a word that sits easy with a man who has worked all his
life, but there it is. An old man alone cannot earn what a younger
man can, and the parish had to help me. There's no shame in it, I
tell myself, though sometimes the shame is there all the same.
But through it all, Rosa, we had our faith. St. Michael's Church
has been the center of our lives—we were married there, our
children were baptized there, our lost ones are buried there, and
your grandmother lies there now. Soon I shall lie beside her. The
Church has been our comfort in sorrow and our joy in celebration.
Whatever else we lacked, we had that.
My Thoughts as an Old Man
I've seen much in my nearly eighty years, child. I've seen England
change—the wars with France when I was young, the coming of the
railways, the great mills that have transformed the wool trade, the
reforms in Parliament, the Queen's long reign. I've seen inventions
and improvements that would have seemed like magic to my grandfather.
But I've also seen that some things don't change. People still
need food and shelter. They still fall in love and marry. They still
have children and watch some of them die too young. They still work
hard for little reward. They still find joy in simple things—a good
meal, a warm fire, a kind word from a neighbor.
Your grandmother and I, we were ordinary folk. We never had wealth
or position. We could not read or write. We worked hard all our lives
and had little to show for it but our children and their children.
But we loved each other, Rosa. We raised our family as best we could.
We stayed faithful to each other and to our God. We lived honest
lives, harming no one.
I wear in this photograph the old smock that was made in
Keevil—the traditional Wiltshire smock that marks me as a working
man. My neckerchief is red, as a countryman's should be. My hat is
old-fashioned now, I know—it was fashionable when I was young, and
I've kept it all these years for Sundays and special occasions. These
clothes tell who I am: a Wiltshire man, a working man, a man of this
place.
For You and Your Children
Rosa, my dear, you're nineteen now, and you work as a servant.
Life has not been easy for you either, I know. But you come from
strong stock, from people who endure, who work, who love their
families.
Remember where you come from. Remember that you have family across
the ocean in America—your uncle James and his children. Remember
that you have aunts and uncles and cousins all through this part of
Wiltshire. The Richmans and the Marshmans, the Hogans and the
Thompsons and the Matthews—we're all connected, all part of the
same web of family and place.
When I am gone—and it won't be long now, I feel it in my
bones—remember your grandfather John Richman, who lived all his
life in Hilperton, who worked with his hands, who loved your
grandmother Ann, who did his best in a hard world. Remember your
grandmother Ann, who worked so skillfully at the loom, who bore eight
children and buried three of them, who kept our home and our family
together through good times and bad.
We were not important people by the world's measure, Rosa. But we
lived, and we loved, and we left children and grandchildren behind
us. That is not nothing. That is something to be proud of.
Tell your children about us someday. Tell them about their
great-grandfather who wore the Wiltshire smock and worked as butcher
and weaver and coal hauler. Tell them about their great-grandmother
who made her mark with an X but whose hands could work magic at the
loom. Tell them we lived in Hilperton Marsh, in this green corner of
Wiltshire, in England, in the reign of the good Queen Victoria.
Tell them we were here.
And now, my dear, I'm tired. These old bones need rest. Help me to
my chair by the fire, there's a good girl. Soon enough I'll rest
forever beside your grandmother in St. Michael's churchyard, but for
now, let me sit here in the warmth and remember.
John Richman died on the 26th of April, 1867, in
Bradford-on-Avon, at the age of 79, and was buried at St. Michael's
Church, Hilperton, where his long life had been marked by marriage,
baptisms, and burials across more than half a century.
================================
3) An Audio Overview (essentially a podcast) created by the Google NotebookLM AI tool) describing this memoir of John Richman in 1867 is here (click on "Audio Overview" and wait for it to load).4) The Video Overview of John Richman's memoir, created by the Google NotebookLM AI tool, is:
5) I edited the Claude memoir text to correct minor inconsistencies and errors. Every large language model (LLM) AI tool writes descriptive text much better than I can write. The AI tools are very perceptive, insightful and create readable text in seconds, including local and national historical events and social history detail when requested.
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