Evelyn's Diary. I was born at Wotton, Surrey [Map], in the County of Surrey, about twenty minutes past two in the morning, being on Tuesday the 31st and last of October, 1620, after my [her husband] father (age 33) had been married about seven years, and that my mother (age 21) had borne him three children; viz, two daughters and one son, about the 33d year of his age, and the 23d of my mother's.

Evelyn's Diary. 1635. But my dear mother (age 36) being now dangerously sick, I was, on the 3d of September following, sent for to Wotton, Surrey [Map]. Whom I found so far spent, that, all human assistance failing, she in a most heavenly manner departed this life upon the 29th of the same month, about eight in the evening of Michaelmas-day. It was a malignant fever which took her away, about the 37th of her age, and 22d of her marriage, to our irreparable loss and the regret of all that knew her. Certain it is, that the visible cause of her indisposition proceeded from grief upon the loss of her daughter, and the infant that followed it; and it is as certain, that when she perceived the peril whereto its excess had engaged her, she strove to compose herself and allay it; but it was too late, and she was forced to succumb. Therefore summoning all her children then living (I shall never forget it), she expressed herself in a manner so heavenly, with instructions so pious and Christian, as made us strangely sensible of the extraordinary loss then imminent; after which, embracing every one of us she gave to each a ring with her blessing and dismissed us. Then, taking my [her husband] father (age 48) by the hand, she recommended us to his care; and, because she was extremely zealous for the education of my [her son] younger brother (age 12), she requested my father (age 48) that he might be sent with me to Lewes [Map]; and so having importuned him that what he designed to bestow on her funeral, he would rather dispose among the poor, she labored to compose herself for the blessed change which she now expected. There was not a servant in the house whom she did not expressly send for, advise, and infinitely affect with her counsel. Thus she continued to employ her intervals, either instructing her relations, or preparing of herself.

Evelyn's Diary. 02 Jan 1641. It was a sad and lugubrious beginning of the year, when, on the 2nd of January 1641, we at night followed the mourning hearse to the church at Wotton; when, after a sermon and funeral oration by the minister, my [her former husband] father was interred near his formerly erected monument, and mingled with the ashes of our mother, his dear wife. Thus we were bereft of both our parents in a period when we most of all stood in need of their counsel and assistance, especially myself, of a raw, vain, uncertain, and very unwary inclination; but so it pleased God to make trial of my conduct in a conjuncture of the greatest and most prodigious hazard that ever the youth of England saw; and, if I did not amidst all this impeach my liberty nor my virtue with the rest who made shipwreck of both, it was more the infinite goodness and mercy of God than the least providence or discretion of mine own, who now thought of nothing but the pursuit of vanity, and the confused imaginations of young men.

Evelyn's Diary. I was now (in regard to my mother's weakness, or rather custom of persons of quality) put to nurse to one Peter, a neighbor's wife and tenant, of a good, comely, brown, wholesome complexion, and in a most sweet place toward the hills, flanked with wood and refreshed with streams; the affection to which kind of solitude I sucked in with my very milk. It appears, by a note of my father's, that I sucked till 17th of January 1622, or at least I came not home before.

Evelyn's Diary. My mother's name was Eleanor, sole daughter and heiress of [her father] John Standsfield, Esq, of an ancient and honorable family (though now extinct) in Shropshire, by his wife [her mother] Eleanor Comber, of a good and well-known house in Sussex. She was of proper personage; of a brown complexion; her eyes and hair of a lovely black; of constitution more inclined to a religious melancholy, or pious sadness; of a rare memory, and most exemplary life; for economy and prudence, esteemed one of the most conspicuous in her country: which rendered her loss much deplored, both by those who knew, and such as only heard of her.