Marjorie Abraham, of Shawford, has died in Winchester's Flowerdown Nursing Home, aged 91.

Born Marjorie Harper, at Itchen Bank, Shawford, on October 10th, 1911, she was the fourth of Charles and Martha Harper's six children.

They all went to the Twyford Church of England School and, like her brothers and sisters, Marjorie started school at the age of five and left at 14.

She was a Brownie, Guide and Ranger as well as belonging to the Girls' Friendly Society.

On leaving school, Marjorie worked in several houses in the area before joining a small business in Twyford, run by a Mrs Cordery, where she became a skilled operator on the new knitting machines.

It was at a dance that Marjorie met her first husband, Jack Nightingale, who worked for the Post Office in Winchester. She was 21 when she married him in 1932.

After their honeymoon, she moved to 4, Park View, Shawford, which was to be Marjorie's home for the rest of her life.

The couple had three children - Yvonne, born in 1934; Michael, born in 1937, and Robin, who was born in 1942.

Jack had joined the RAF and became a Sergeant Flight Observer. He was killed in action just three weeks before Robin was born.

During the next five years, Marjorie brought the children up on her own and even took in evacuees.

In 1947, Marjorie married again. She had known Sidney Abraham since childhood and he had been badly wounded at Arnhem.

They were together for 23 years until his death in 1970.

Marjorie was an active member of the Mothers' Union until the village branch closed. She also found time to join the Heathcote Players.

For 66 years, she belonged to the Women's Institute, serving on the committee and, for a time, as treasurer. She was both vice-president and president of the branch in the early 1970s.

On top of this, Marjorie made wine, baked cakes and made jams and marmalade: the High Commissioner for Uganda, Professor George Kirya, a friend of the family, was the proud recipient of one of her cakes and a jar or two of her marmalade.

Marjorie had been a regular churchgoer until the last few years of her life and had never missed a Remembrance Sunday.

At the end of January, she fell ill and was taken to the Royal Hampshire County Hospital, in Winchester. She was transferred to Flowerdown Nursing Home on March 7th and died peacefully there on March 13th.

She is survived by her three children, 15 grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren.

* This is a corrected version of an obituary published in the Hampshire Chronicle on March 28th.