![]() ![]() On 3 December 1938, 11 years after they had first met, she married Alf Lennon after she had proposed to him. They spent their days together walking around Liverpool and talking of what they would do in the future: opening a shop, a pub, a cafe, or a club. She played the ukulele, the piano accordion, and the banjo (as did Lennon), although neither pursued music professionally. Her voice sounded similar to Vera Lynn's, whilst Lennon specialised in impersonating Louis Armstrong and Al Jolson. It was remarked that she could be as humorous as any man and would sing the popular songs of the day at any time of day or night. She frequented Liverpool's dance halls and clubs where she was often asked to dance in jitterbug competitions with dockers, soldiers, sailors, and waiters. A nephew later said that she could "make a joke out of nothing", and could have "walked out of a burning house with a smile and a joke". She was always well-dressed and even went to bed with make-up on so as to "look beautiful when she woke up". Sefton Park, where Julia Stanley first met Alf Lennonĭespite standing only five feet two inches (157 cm) tall in heels, she often caught the gaze of men in the street, being attractive and full-figured. She asked him to take off his hat, so he promptly threw it straight into the Sefton Park lake. Julia (14 years old) said that his hat looked "silly", to which the 15-year-old Alf replied that she looked "lovely", and sat down next to her. Lennon, who was dressed in a bowler hat and with a cigarette holder in hand, saw "this little waif" sitting on a wrought-iron bench. He saw her again in Sefton Park, where he had gone with a friend to meet girls. At the Trocadero club, a converted cinema on Camden Street, Liverpool, he first saw an "auburn-haired girl with a bright smile and high cheekbones", Julia Stanley. Marriage to Alf Lennon Īlfred Lennon-always called "Alf" by his family -was always joking but never held a job for very long, preferring to visit Liverpool's many vaudeville theatres and cinemas, where he knew the usherettes by name. Her mother died in 1945, and Julia had to take care of her father with help from her oldest sister. He moved his family to the suburb of Wavertree, where they lived in a small terraced house at 9 Newcastle Road near to Penny Lane. Their father, George Ernest Stanley, retired from the Merchant Navy and found a job with the Liverpool & Glasgow Salvage Association as an insurance investigator. John Lennon would later comment that the Stanley girls were "five, fantastic, strong, beautiful, and intelligent women". Her mother, Annie Jane (née Millward), gave birth to a boy and then a girl, both of whom died shortly after birth. ![]() Julia Stanley, later known by the family as Judy, was born at 8 Head Street, Toxteth, South Liverpool in 1914, and was the fourth of five sisters. Biographer Ian MacDonald wrote that she was, "to a great extent . ![]() John was traumatised by her death and wrote several songs about her, including " Julia" and " Mother". On 15 July 1958, she was knocked down and killed by a car driven by an off-duty policeman, close to her sister's house at 251 Menlove Avenue. She kept in almost daily contact with John, and when he was in his teens he often stayed overnight at her and Dykins' house. She taught her son how to play the banjo and ukulele. She was known as being high-spirited and impulsive, musical, and having a strong sense of humour. She never divorced her husband, preferring to live as the common-law wife of Dykins for the rest of her life. She then had two daughters, Julia and Jackie, with John "Bobby" Dykins. She later had one daughter after an affair with a Welsh soldier, but the baby was placed for adoption after pressure from her family. After complaints to Liverpool's Social Services by her eldest sister, Mimi Smith (née Stanley), she handed over the care of her son to her sister Mimi. Julia Lennon ( née Stanley 12 March 1914 – 15 July 1958) was the mother of English musician John Lennon, who was born during her marriage to Alfred Lennon.
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