On a frosty morning in January 1757, Sutterby church witnessed a double ceremony. The churchwarden William Rhoades recorded the events with a heavy heart under his own signature. His son, Richard Rhoades was baptised, and that same day his wife was buried there.

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Thirteen years later William himself was buried in the same churchyard, leaving two young boys orphaned and homeless.

A few years after America won its independence, the two orphaned brothers, Richard and George, left Lincolnshire for Virginia.

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They bought a plot of land together and married two sisters.

Generations later, one of their hundreds of descendants in the US traced them back to their home parish, and to the church where they had been baptised.

3/3 http://friendsoffriendlesschurches.org.uk/sutterby-rhoades-story/