On 5th August 1916 Barbara Lena Rothermel (Janice Carrera's paternal grandmother) married Ernest Albert Butler in the Methodist Chapel Shardlow Long Eaton Derbyshire. The Butler family lived in Wellingborough just around the corner to Barbara Lena. A son Ernest Derek was born in 1920 but he has been very difficult to trace. He was known as Derek Butler.
Julius Rothermel 'Watson' was aged seven at the time of the marriage but no mention was ever made by him to his children or family as to where he was and with whom he lived at the time. It is known however that by the age of ten he was a boarder at Wellingborough School.
Ernest Butler was Janice and Alastair's step grandfather who they never knew. There was always a great SILENCE in the family about the Butler connection, equally the secret was kept about Barbara Lena's father being German. The first Rothermel to have settled in the UK from Baden Wurttemberg in the 1870's. Harry Bird was very generous to Barbara Lena when she arrived in Devon with no money just before WW2 by giving her a room free of charge in Esdaile. According to older members of the family Ernest Butler was in India!