Kathleen Mary Easmon was born in Accra, in the Gold Coast (now known as Ghana), in 1891 or 1892. She was the daughter of Dr John Farrell Easmon and Annette Kathleen Easmon (née Smith). John was a prominent physician, credited with discovering an effective treatment for Black Water fever. The Easmon’s could trace their ancestry back to the original settlers of Freetown, freed African-American slaves who crossed the Atlantic from Nova Scotia in 1792.
Kathleen made several trips to England (e.g. in 1896 she and her mother visited her maternal grandfather on Jersey) before moving to England in 1900 or 1901 (the family doesn’t appear in the 1901 census, completed on 31st March / 1st April, census so it seems likely they arrived after this date). This move followed the death of Kathleen’s father in June 1900, her mother having decided that Kathleen and her brother Charles would receive a better education in England. Kathleen is known to have attended Notting Hill High School for girls (her brother is known to have attended Epsom College). After Notting Hill High School, Kathleen attended South Kensington College where she studied fashion design from 1910 to 1914 , following her graduation she became an Associate of the Royal College of Art .
Kathleen’s mother (and aunts) were friendly with the composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (whose father came from Sierra Leone) and he set some of Kathleen’s poems to music (published under the title ‘Five Fairy Ballads).
One of them (Kathleen, her mother or an aunt, it isn’t quite clear which one) is believed to have been present when Coleridge-Taylor died in 1912.
During the war years she made a number of appearances in theatrical productions in London. The Times carried a review of one appearance and The Crisis (an American publication) reported a ‘matinee at the Shaftesbury Theatre in aid of the Indian troops in France’, Queen Alexandra and other members of the Royal Family were said to have been present.
Kathleen left England in 1917 for Sierra Leone (the birth place of her parents) but she subsequently traveled widely, including a visit to England in 1920 (she traveled 1st class from Sierra Leone to Liverpool) and to New York where she met her husband to be, Columbus Kamba Simango. She and Columbus visited England together from New York in 1923.
Kathleen’s final trip to England was in 1924 (she disembarked at Southampton on 15th June, having sailed from Buenos Aires aboard the Almanzora). But she was taken ill and she died in Charing Cross Hospital, London, on 27th July 1924. It is apparent from her death certificate that her death followed a full hysterectomy. The London Times carried an obituary according to which she was to be buried at Kensington Cemetery. Her husband did not arrive in England in time to be with her when she died but was the one who registered the death on 30th July.
All of the above information is in the public domain and can be found through sites such as Wikipedia or ancestry.co.uk but, anyone wishing to know more about the life of Kathleen Easmon, should visit the excellent site maintained by her descendents: http://easmonfambuldem.com/page-4.html. This contains a number of additional photos and much more information than could be included in this brief overview..
She is buried in a well-maintained cemetery in Hanwell and the inscription reads: ‘This is not the end but the beginning’.
