Personal
In April 1922, Wallis met his cousin-in-law, Molly Bloxam, at a family tea party. She was only 17 and he was 35, and her father forbade them from courting. However, he allowed Wallis to assist Molly with her mathematics courses by correspondence, and they wrote some 250 letters, enlivening them with fictional characters such as "Duke Delta X". The letters gradually became personal, and Wallis proposed marriage on her 20th birthday. They married on 23 April 1925, and were married for 54 years until his death in 1979.
He lived with his family in Effingham, Surrey, for 49 years from 1930 until his death in 1979. They had four children - Barnes (1924-2008), Mary (b. 1927), Elisabeth (b. 1933) and Christopher (1935-2006) - and also adopted Molly's sister's children when their parents were killed in an air raid.
His daughter Mary Eyre Wallis later married Harry Stopes-Roe, a son of Marie Stopes.
His son Christopher Loudon Wallis was instrumental in the restoration of the watermill and its building on the Stanway Estate near Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
Read more about this topic: Barnes Wallis
Famous quotes containing the word personal:
“The whole effort of a sincere man is to erect his personal impressions into laws.”
—Rémy De Gourmont (1858–1915)
“Oh, what a catastrophe for man when he cut himself off from the rhythm of the year, from his unison with the sun and the earth. Oh, what a catastrophe, what a maiming of love when it was a personal, merely personal feeling, taken away from the rising and the setting of the sun, and cut off from the magic connection of the solstice and the equinox!”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“I am in no boastful mood. I shall not do more than I can, and I shall do all I can to save the government, which is my sworn duty as well as my personal inclination. I shall do nothing in malice. What I deal with is too vast for malicious dealing.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)