Stephanie Emalia Feichtlbauer. Quite a handle for a tiny little girl from north London. As an adult, her friends called her “Tanner” or “Sixpence” – a reference to her diminutive stature. But don’t let her small size fool you – she could pack a figurative punch.

Stephanie was born at the turn of the 20th century, the fifth of seven children born to George Maurice Feichtlbauer, an Austrian immigrant, and Alice Dentus. She was nearly thirty before she married – probably a result of the shortage of eligible males after the terrible losses of the First World War. She had been seeing Bill Balch and when she discovered she was pregnant (with my mother Stephanie), family legend has it that she threatened to throw herself off Westminster Bridge if he didn’t marry her. He did and so she didn’t – and we are all here today because of that.

Their marriage was not a happy one – Bill was a difficult, contrary man. He was given to long solitary walks around London and would disappear for days on end. He deliberately tormented her by making a great show of gussying himself up before he left - it drove her crazy and that’s why he did it. Stephanie herself was not an easy person to live with – according to her children, Bill and Stephanie, she was a demanding tyrant, and ruled them with an iron fist. In the early days of WW 2, she decreed that her daughter, who was only 9 when the war started, would be responsible for safeguarding the family’s important papers. When the air raid sirens went off, young Stephanie had to run through the streets while the bombs rained down on London to retrieve the papers from home and then run back to the Underground shelter. Those frightening moments stayed with young Stephanie all her life.

Stephanie had a generous side to her, though. Although money was scarce - neither she nor Bill were employed in well-paying jobs - when payday rolled around, she didn’t hesitate to buy extravagant birthday or anniversary gifts for friends and neighbours. But once the money was spent on gifts, the family had to rely on the generosity of the local Roman Catholic church for food and clothing.

I only met my grandmother a handful of times – our relationship was so distant that when I visited her in her care home towards the end of her life, she introduced me to her friends as her “daughter’s daughter”.  That’s one way to put it.

Stephanie was not what you would call a good role model for her children – she was mostly estranged from her family, she was an unkind, selfish mother who overlooked her husband’s abusive behavior to their children to avoid a quarrel, and she was often manipulative to get what she wanted. Yet somehow, her daughter Stephanie grew up to be smart, kind, generous, hard-working, and a wonderful mother, grandmother, and friend. We can be grateful to Stephanie Emalia for giving us this special woman.