Post
by Currie » Wed Jul 22, 2020 11:03 am
Thanks People,
I’ll finish up this series with a smattering of stories, from a smattering of places, starting with the Glasgow Herald, Tuesday, December 4, 1866.
DEATH OF A CENTENARIAN.
On Sunday last a decent old woman, named Helen Boyle, expired in her house at Clyde Terrace, at the great age of 102 years, Mrs Boyle was the widow of a farmer, who, in his earlier days, resided at Meville, near Londonderry, his native place, Being unsuccessful as a farmer, Mr Boyle and his wife came to Glasgow about fifty years ago, and started business in a small way. A gentleman whose relatives knew the history of Mrs Boyle well has courteously handed us a few jottings regarding the life of the deceased. She was born in Meville in 1764, on a day of a week in November, which was made memorable by a dreadful gale of wind, by which several fishing boats were wrecked, and many of her father’s neighbours drowned.
Mrs Boyle was a fine-looking woman in her early years, and retained a good fresh colour, and many of her teeth till a very old age. Her memory was most retentive, and at as recent a date as September last, when our informant accompanied a gentleman to visit her, and told her the visitors name and connections, she, without a moment's consideration, told him that he was the person who had given her the first fourpenny piece she had ever seen, This occurred about 28 years ago, and Mrs Boyle had never seen the gentleman during the interval. While able she supported herself, and through her honesty and truthfulness gained many friends amongst those who dealt with her. For almost twelve years previous to her death she was confined to bed; but the friends she had made did not forsake her, There is little doubt that the perfect sobriety and simplicity of her life tended greatly to lengthen her days.
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Evening Telegraph, Dundee, Thursday, September 18, 1879.
A “TOUGH OLD LADY.”
(From the Daily Telegraph of this morning. )
We lately chronicled the death of a stout centenarian in the Island of Skye—an old woman—but the really “oldest inhabitant” is only now dead, and she, too, was Scotch. Mrs Margaret Robertson or Duncan died two days since at Coupar Angus in her one hundred and seventh year. She was born in Glenshee, we are told, in 1773, and had lived under the reigns of three British Kings and one Queen. Until about six or eight years ago she retained possession of all her faculties, but then she became blind, and about a year since bedridden. She was very intelligent, it is stated, and talked in terms of becoming scorn of the poor feeble creatures who could not manage to live longer than a paltry eighty or ninety years, which, she declared, “was nae age ava.”
But how did this seasoned old dame, it may be asked, manage to ‘‘top” the century in longevity? For one thing she was a devoted smoker. The clay pipe was often in her mouth, and she repelled the notion that it could do her any harm. When spoken to about the injurious effects of tobacco her invariable answer was, “I’ve smoked a’ my days. It’s had plenty time to dae me ill, and it’s never socht.” Mrs Duncan’s deduction from her long experience will be admitted to be a perfectly sound one, and every smoker will refer with pride to the tough old lady of Coupar Angus as a conclusive proof of the antiseptic properties of his favourite weed.
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Aberdeen Journal, Wednesday, September 25, 1895.
A FRASERBURGH CENTENARIAN,
In an attic room in a building at the junction of Cross Street and High Street, Fraserburgh, within a couple of hundred yards of the spot upon which stood the house where she was born upon August 28th, 1795, lives Isabella Morrison, better known locally as Bella Morris. Bed-ridden for the past two years, she lies in not altogether a helpless condition; unostentatiously grateful for the good offices of kind neighbours and the quiet, worthy acts of private friends. Uncomplaining, cheerful, devout, but undemonstrative in her devotion, Bella Morrison is a pattern from whom many good people, even more comfortably placed than she, and who have not perhaps more than one-half the burden of her years, might profitably copy.
At the end of a century the furrow of time is deeply marked on her visage; but still her face is pot unpleasant to look at. Her short hands, with their small fingers, are withered and bony, but their pristine shape is unmarred by any distortion. Her eye is still bright, though time must have dimmed its lustre. Her voice has lost its music, and the huskiness, which, in a more powerful organ, might have sounded harsh, is not at all unpleasant. The ear has lost its power, and nothing, perhaps, strains the frame more than the exertion always made to catch the sound of conversation or speech. The general intelligence is unimpaired, if the power of memory which, within the past year or two has weakened somewhat, is excepted.
“Whaur was I born?—In the Broch!” This is her steadfast and ready answer. Two years ago she would have told you she was born in Saltoun Square, in a small building which stood beside the spot where the North of Scotland Bank now stands. Bella Morrison is a true “Brocher,” and after a hundred years’ experience of the old place, even yet her patriotism swells over any little piece of intelligence about the advancement of the town. Her reminiscences of the olden days tend towards showing how steady has been the progress of the town.
Her memory, it has been said, is not so fresh as it once was, but it can still recall outstanding events through the dimness which surrounds objects three-quarters of a century behind her. It was Hugh Miller who said that he could distinctly recall people who had died years before he was born; and so it is with many old people, who, in their early day, had listened again and again to vivid recollections of men and things that were behind them. So far as can be judged, Bella Morrison does not suffer from such delusions. One listens with deep interest to those who speak with the authority of an eye-witness about the state of the country on reception of the news of victory from the Crimea; but how much is the interest deepened when one hears the tale of rejoicing on the reception of the news of Wellington’s glorious triumph over Napoleon at Waterloo and the valour of the old veteran of the House of Philorth. Bella Morrison can still recall the burning of boats and the building of the bonfire at the end of the town when the foot-post brought the good tidings.
But the reminiscences of the centenarian do not often travel so far back over the years. Her memory turns most readily to a period to her less remote, but to most people far behind. The days of the Disruption are to her full of happy memories. A teacher in the Parish Church Sunday School, she came out with the children in 1843, and played the part of a truly earnest devotee of the secession Church of the day. She is full of the story of these times even yet, and looks back with pride on the early struggles of the infant Church.
Bella Morrison has never been married. Up till a few years ago, she industriously wrought for her bread, Early in life she was a general servant, and can yet tell where and with whom she first started life on her own account. Latterly she followed the occupation which her mother pursued, that of a white seamstress, going out by the day or the week to the houses of townspeople and the larger establishments of the gentry in pursuit of her calling. In this capacity she was frequently employed at Philorth House.
Her attic room in High Street is commodious to her wants, and strikes one as being well suited to appearance for the habitation of a centenarian. Ancient and modern are blended there not without harmony. Family relics upon which the lapse of centuries have left their mark, sit cheek by jowl with products of this, the latter end of the nineteenth century. Most interesting of all perhaps is what Bella Morrison regards as a precious heirloom, and which, indeed, the veriest connoisseur would concede was well worth possessing. This is a fine specimen of a sixteenth century arm-chair, which, however, appears to have been made, according to date (1673), towards the end of the seventeenth century. The chair, almost beyond doubt, once sat in the hall of the now ruined Castle of Pitsligo. Its fine carvings would have gratified the well-known taste of the Forbeses, while the arms of the family, carved as a centre-piece in the back, almost make the evidence conclusive. The chair has been handed down to her—by what process Bella Morrison never specified.
Another reminiscence she gives that links the past with the present, is that which recalls her great-grandmother’s story of her having been carrying butter and eggs to Fraserburgh on the day when the mob laid violent hands on the old chapel, when the fittings were burned.
It is truly a pleasant reflection that she feels not want, and that many kind friends minister to her comfort, and bear her company frequently.
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Aberdeen Journal, Tuesday, April 11, 1899.
A WEST HIGHLAND CENTENARIAN,
There lives at Gobsheallach, Ardnamurchan, a woman who may, perhaps, fairly claim to be the oldest in Scotland. Her name is Mary Stewart, and she is in her 106th year, having, according to well-authenticated information, been born in 1793. She is a native of Swordle, in Western Ardnamurchan, where her ancestors for generations held farming possessions. She was never much from home, but was well and widely known in the parish of her birth and the surrounding districts. Her habits have been characteristically plain and simple. So far as can be ascertained, she has never taken a doctor's prescription, and never experienced any serious indisposition. The old lady has quite a fund of pawky humour, and can enjoy or “crack” a joke as few can.
Brimful of Highland folklore, and still retaining a vivid recollection of many stirring events which have now almost come to be regarded as matters of history, she can rehearse stories of the historic and romantic incidents of the past with much fascination and grace. Gaelic, the only language of which she has any knowledge, she speaks with singular idiomatic purity. She enjoys excellent health, and is able to rise daily and take a turn in the open air. Her faculties and senses continue almost unimpaired. Her memory has lost little of its power, her hearing is almost perfect, and her eyesight is so keen that she can with glasses thread a small needle. She never married, and has for years resided with a niece.
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Well, that’s it for the centenarians. Lang did their lum reek, especially the “tough old lady of Coupar Angus”.
All the best,
Alan
He certainly lived a varied life, even though he never went very far from his birthplace.![[cheers]](./images/smilies/cheers.gif "Cheers"){kind=small}
