The photograph of Mrs Elizabeth Verrill drew comments from readers from as far afield as Germany wishing to share their memories with us.
Mrs Verrill's picture, below, is included in a new book produced by English Heritage, which was featured recently in the Whitby Gazette.
Jean Shipley, who now lives in Clevedon, near Bristol, wrote to us with memories of Mrs Verrill – Auntie Lizzie – who came into her life in the 1930s.
She said Elizabeth Verrill (nee Robinson) was born in the 1870s in Patrington, East Yorkshire.
Her widowed father came to Staithes to be head of the Mission School in Church Street.
Before her marriage she was employed in Whitby as lady's maid to a GP and she married Robert Verrill, Titch, who worked at the mines at Grinkle.
He was out of work in the depression of the 1930s and from then on Mrs Verrill was sole breadwinnner.
Having no children she brought up two orphan boys, one became a sea captain, the other a chief coastguard and numerous mothers were helped by her after giving birth.
Mrs Shipley's parents ran the village bakery and cafe while taking in paying guests and Auntie Lizzie became a surrogate mother to her.
"I grew very attached to her and uncle Titch in my second home, their cottage at Beckside," she said.
"Every afternoon under the stairs Auntie Lizzie would wash herself, bowl on shelf, zinc pail beneath, then change into a fresh white bonnet and apron.
"On the edge of the beckside across from her door was the wash house, still standing today where the fire was lit under the copper for the weeks wash," said Mrs Shipley.
She described how the tiny home sparkled, the linoleum shone and the clipped mats washed annually in the beck.
The Primitive Methodist Chapel was Mrs Verrill's great love with it's Sunday service, weekly prayer, women's fellowship, faith teas, sick visiting and funeral services.
Mrs Verrill taught her young companion to knit but not after 6pm when superstition forbade the risk of one winding sailors onto the rocks.
"Uncle Titch wore a guernsey, a new one kept for Sunday as with all the wives, the knitting was a source of great pride."
Mrs Verrill even kept a set of spare needles to be interred with her.
"Auntie was full of fun and laughter, devoted to her husband when he died in his seventies in about 1955 she soon followed him.
"Too busy to be relaxing outside her home, one imagines Mr Gay would have asked her to bring out a chair for the photograph.
"In 1952 when a group of art students undertook a field study their tutor asked her to sit for them.
"One of their number, who was to become my future husband, remembers being in the presence of a petite, immaculate and gracious lady," added Mrs Shipley.
l To see more pictures taken by photographer John Gay, including many in the Staithes area, head for www.whitbygazette.co.uk, go to this story and click on the link.