Florence Van Stockum

BIOGRAPHY

Florence Van Stockum was born in Orwell, Cambridgeshire, England, on 5 October 1894, the youngest of twelve children. Her father, George William Freestone, was listed as a blacksmith, and her mother was Clarissa Meakin Freestone. Florence had little memory of her father, as he passed away when she was just three or four years old. Early in life, she developed a talent for expressive writing. In 1908, at just 13 years old, she became a substitute kindergarten teacher for 4- and 5-year-olds, teaching them the alphabet, multiplication tables, fairy tales, knitting, and weaving.

In 1914, after finishing boarding school in Cambridge, she became the secretary of the Cundall Folding Machine Company in Orwell. The company specialized in manufacturing machines for folding newspapers and held a contract to sell its products to East India. On 24 June 1915, she married Reginald Bareham on his 21st birthday. She left the company later that year, when she was three or four months pregnant. During World War I, her husband was killed in action in France on 1 July 1916, at the age of 22 while serving with the 11th Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment. They had a son, Ronald Reginald Van Stockum (8 July 1916 – 24 April 2022), who lived to be 105 years, 290 days. During the war, she volunteered for the Women’s Royal Air Force, where she drove ambulances for cadets taking their first solo flights at the training station in Fowlmere.

During World War I, she met her second husband, Lt. Col. Anton William Van Stockum (1890–1988), while cycling through Duxford. He was an American airman, likely stationed at either Duxford or Fowlmere. After he was deployed overseas, they continued to correspond, and following the war, she decided to visit him in America with her young son, whom he later adopted. They were married on 24 May 1920. She spent 40 years living in San Diego before retiring to Kentucky. Her son became a decorated officer of the United States Marine Corps with the rank of brigadier general, and a veteran of Bougainville, Guam and Iwo Jima campaigns. Her son married a French woman who was a descendant of the Bourbon royal family.

In early 1987, while still living in San Diego, she informed her son that her husband was declining and increasingly difficult for her to care for due to their advanced ages. Her son persuaded them to move to Shelby County, Kentucky, to live with him, although they did so with reluctance. In November 1988, her husband passed away at the age of 98. In 1998, she suffered a leg fracture and had to be moved to the Crestview Health Care Center, where she spent the last six years of her life, using a walker to navigate its halls. In October 2004, shortly after her 110th birthday, she developed a serious health issue: her esophagus was not functioning properly, preventing her from receiving nourishment orally. Although her doctor recommended the insertion of a feeding tube, she declined to undergo the procedure.

Florence Van Stockum passed away in Shelbyville, Kentucky, USA, on 2 May 2005, at the age of 110 years, 209 days.