Florence Ivy Mary Holmes

Florence Ivy Mary Holmes (1891–1983) was a dancer and the English wife of Archibald Belaney (1888 – 1938), commonly known as "Grey Owl".

Early life

Ivy was born in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois on 11 April 1891, the daughter of John Robert Holmes, a doctor, and Florence Amelia Jane Abraham (1864-1941).

Her father died when she was only two, and her mother returned to west London, initially in Bedford Park, later moving to Hammersmith. Around 1900, Florence became friends with the aunts of her future husband, Archibald Belaney, in Hastings, due to a shared interest in purebred Collie dogs. (Belaney was raised by his two aunts and grandmother, his father and mother having been deemed unfit for parenthood by the family. "He was always a tremendous admirer of the Red Indians." She recalled playing at being Indians with Archie: "I was his squaw 'Dancing Moonbeam', he was 'Big Chief Thunderbinder'". Several of Belaney's school friends later recalled "his intense interest in nature and his love for animals and Red Indian lore".

Belaney would stay with the Holmeses at their home in Hammersmith while exploring the city. He and his aunt Ada also stayed with them on the way to Liverpool, where, on 29 March 1906, he boarded the SS Canada for Halifax, Nova Scotia. That was the last Ivy saw of him till after the war. Belaney stated that he was a bachelor, although he was still married to his first wife, Angele Egwuna, whom he had married in 1910 in Canada. She divorced Belaney in 1922 and after her divorce came through in September married John Kingston Edward Cash (1890–1963) later that year. They had a daughter, Vivien, born 1924. They lived in Twickenham; during the 1930s at Cresswell Road, and at Ellesmere Road in the 1940s. On 29 March 1983 she died in a nursing home in Hindhead, Surrey.