Born: February 10, 1882, Broughton, Salford, England.
Died: 1972, Tivoli Nursing Home, Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin, Ireland.
Buried: Rathcoole, County Dublin, Ireland.
Winifred was the daughter of Ernest Letts, an English cleric, and Isabel Mary Ferrier, and wife of widower William Henry Foster Verschoyle, of Kilberry, County Kildare (married 1926).
Winfred spent many childhood holidays in Knockmaroon, Phoenix Park, Dublin, her mother’s home. After her father’s death, she and her mother returned to Ireland and lived in a house called Dal Riada in Blackrock, County Dublin.
She was educated first in Bromley in Kent, and later at Alexandra College in Dublin. She trained as a masseuse and during World War I worked at army camps in Manchester.
After marriage, the couple lived in Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin, and in County Kildare. After Williams death in 1943, Winifred lived for a time with her sisters in Faversham, Kent.
She returned to Ireland in 1950 and bought Beech Cottage in Killiney, County Dublin, where she lived until finally moving to the Tivoli Nursing Home, Dún Laoghaire, in the late 1960s.
Ambassador of Christ you go
Up to the very gates of hell,
Through fog of powder, storm of shell,
To speak your Master’s message: Lo,
The Prince of Peace is with you still,
His peace be with you, His goodwill.
It is not small, your priesthood’s price,
To be a man and yet stand by,
To hold your life whilst others die,
To bless, not share the sacrifice,
To watch the strife and take no part—
You with the fire at your heart.
But yours, for our great Captain Christ
To know the sweat of agony,
The darkness of Gethsemane
In anguish for these souls unpriced.
Vicegerent of God’s pity you,
A sword must pierce your own soul through.
In the pale gleam of new-born day
Apart in some tree-shadowed place,
Your altar but a packing case,
Rude as the shed where Mary lay,
Your sanctuary the rain-drenched sod
You bring the kneeling soldier, God.
As sentinel you guard the gate
’Twixt life and death, and unto death
Speed the brave soul whose failing breath
Shudders not at the grip of Fate,
But answers, gallant to the end,
Christ is the Word—and I His friend.
Then God go with you, priest of God,
For all is well and shall be well.
What though you tread the roads of hell?
With nail-pierced feet these ways He trod.
Above the anguish and the loss
Still floats the ensign of His cross.
Winifred Mary Letts
The Spires of Oxford, 1917
If you know where to get a good photo of Letts (head & shoulders, at least 200×300 pixels),