Have to share this one!
In my parents papers we found some photographs of relatives in Scotland. One of them was an 8x10 inch or close of a very elderly lady sitting up in bed with a decorated cake on her bedside table and a big smile on her face. Of course, the picture had no name on it. It did have a stamp from the Aberdeen Press and Journal on the back so just before Christmas I emailed the Aberdeen Central Library and asked them to look for the picture. We were pretty sure that the lady was our grandmother Munro's Aunt Agnes Cadenhead and the occasion was probably Agnes's hundreth birthday which would have been Oct. 15, 1929. She lived to be 103 plus years old.
Well, it took a while, but today I received not only a copy of the original picture and the article that went with it in the Press and Journal, but also but the same article from the People's Journal both the city edition and the Aberdeen, Bannff and Kincardine edition and one from the Aberdeen Bon Accord and Northern Pictoral. Then they went on to look up her death notice from two different papers and two articles which were written in the papers on her death!!! All of this came with no charge! I was stunned and very grateful!
Agnes was the oldest of ten children and outlived all of her siblings. She kept her memory and her wit up to the end. In the centenary article she recalled moving from Skene to Dunecht when she was a child and attending church services in the woods after the Disruption split the church. She also remembered when the Earl of Crawford's body was stolen from the vault and how they were suspicious of their neighbors and if anyone was seen carrying a load they were sure it was the body!
She went up to Aberdeen and into domestic service when she was twenty-two where she stayed for twenty five years. Then she catered to boarders until she gave that up at the age of eighty. She remembered Queen Victoria's corination and saw the queen in her coach when the queen made a later visit to Aberdeen. Agnes remained single and lived at 44 Blackfriars Street in Aberdeen for 52 years only leaving there a couple of years before she died. She even received a congratualtory telegram from the King and Queen on her hundredth birthday--well, from their private secretary.
I can't thank the Aberdeen Central Library enough, especially Morag Penny, Assistant Reference and Local Studies Librarian!
Carol
![[many-greens]](./images/smilies/many-greens.gif "[many-greens]"){kind=small}
![[cheers]](./images/smilies/cheers.gif "Cheers"){kind=small}
I'll be reading for a while, but right now I'm going to google the Earl of Crawford and see if his body was ever found!
You must really be excited. I know that I would be if something like that happened to me.