Family Passing

Grandma Hepburn

The day we moved from Biggar to Glasgow in 1885 I can remember Grandma Hepburn coming over to help us pack. Then she saw us away after all our furniture had been taken. When she shook hands with my mother and kissed us all she burst into tears. She went out back to Grandpa who was waving to us from his door and she had her apron to her eye. That was the last I saw of Grandma Hepburn. She died some time afterwards (1894). My father was often at Biggar before she passed on but Addie and I were not. My father and I went to her funeral. She was buried in the Hepburn plot in front of Biggar Church, close to the south wall of the church. There was a big crowd of people but of course they were all of the male sex. Women did not go to funerals in Scotland in those days.

I can remember the short service in Grandpa’s house, the relations standing around the coffin. Grandpa did not go to a church, so there was no minister in attendance. Old Sandy McGowan (sitting, uncle John Hepburn standing), the schoolmaster at Culter and a cousin to my father,

read the service in the house and at the grave. Grandpa claimed he belonged to the Cameroonian Church but I don’t remember him attending any. At the conclusion of the burial the friends who had not dispersed were talking quietly as the gravedigger was filling in the earth. Grandpa came over to me and as he watched the earth being shoveled his hand caught mine without a word. We stood like this for a minute as he held my hand tight. I did not look up but I could hear him clearing his throat. I had never seen a tear on old grandfather’s face but I am sure there were some then. Then, he straightened himself and slowly leaning down towards the gravedigger the harsh voice of the old Heburon came in what was meant for a whisper: “Jamie. Did you find any bones where you dug?” “No, not one, Mr. Heburon, not one.” “Good”, said Grandpa and then we joined the others still hand-in-hand. We went back to the house that was full of relations but it seemed empty without grandma. Aunt Lockhart and Aunt Jane attended to the service of tea and cake but I cannot remember the train journey back to Glasgow with my father. I must have slept most of the way. That old Sandie McGowan was a cousin of the Hepburn’s. His mother had also been a Pennie. He was my father’s first school teacher. Father had no very good opinion of him. He had a short leg and a long one and went with a bad limp. He was an old batchelor, a great smoker and had no woman person to keep him in order. He was often heard to say that women were the cause of all the trouble in the world. That perhaps arose from the fact that his mother was never married. I heard that his father had died just before Sandy was born. He never was invited to my mother’s house for some reason. I think it was because he had such a caustic tongue.

Grandpa Hepburn

It was in 1895 that Grandpa Hepburn died. My mother had sold the grain store and she and Addie moved to her own house at Lochwinnoch before then. She went to Biggar for a week or two to help Aunt Lockhart nurse Grandpa in his last illness. Uncle John (left) seemed to resent this too.

After my Grandfather’s death mother returned home. I went to Biggar for the funeral. Uncle John accompanied me to the station next day as I was returning to Glasgow. Just before parting he pulled himself up and said, “Now, Tom. You will be welcome to come to visit us at any time both here at Biggar and in Glasgow. But please tell your mother that she will not be invited. Thank her from me for helping out at the nursing of my father recently. It was your Aunt Jane that called for her to come, not me.” I looked at him to see if he was really in earnest. I thought to myself, “What a queer thing to say.” The train came to the station then and I held my tongue. That was the last that I saw of my Uncle John. He was not very helpful later when some of Grandpa’s property was found to be left to me in Grandpa’s will. He made the disposal of the property go for as little value as possible. My mother said always that Uncle John had all the faults of the Hepburns and none of the good points. He did not have the geniality of his father anyways.

While nursing the old man that time my mother was horrified the day before he died. He raised his head off the pillow and said in a weak voice, “I want a smoke.” She had to fill one of his old, smelly pipes and light it for him. She held it for him until he got a puff or two. Then he winked an eye at her saying wheezily, “That’s good.” Then he fell into his last sleep. Grandpa had consumed a fortune in tobacco or rather had puffed it away in smoke. His house was saturated with the stink of his thick, black tobacco and his pores must have oozed nicotine for many years.

James Hepburn (1841-1894)

My father died on 26 January, 1894. He had been gradually failing in health for some time. Towards the end his memory was fading and my mother and sister had to manage the shop. I was not a very good son for I failed to see how he was getting weaker and did not do all I might have done to make things easier for him. I was away all day of course at strenuous work of my own but I might have helped my mother and sister better on the weekends. There came a morning when my mother roused me at 4:00am saying, “Come and help me lift your father. He is in a cramped position in bed and breathing heavily.” We did what we could to straighten him and had him partly conscious and breathing easier before I left for work. A doctor who had attended him a day or two previously had told us that he could do nothing more for him but we did not understand that the end was so near. I got a telegram at the works from my mother that afternoon. “Father passed away in his sleep. Come home at once.” I showed the telegram to Mr. Wylie, the foreman, and he was good to me in my excitement and expressed his sympathy in a way I never forgot. He told me to get home at once and he would get the job I was at finished at another bench.

Going home I wondered how I was going to get along in life with no father to guide me. I was only eighteen years old. My mother was only 45 then and had still the greater half of her life ahead of her. She lived until she was 92. I missed my father’s advice and good example in many ways but my mother was the one I could rely upon in most difficulties. She had a clear brain and was not afraid to speak her mind.

My mother carried the grain store with my sister’s help and a lad to run the messages and the heavy lifts for about nine months after my father died. She then sold the business, gave up her house at 10 Carrington St. and moved out to her own house at Lochwinnoch, the house that had been in the Crawford family for three generations. The address of this old house was Braehead, Calder Street, Lochwinnoch.

Prior to my father’s passing I spent any spare time I had then in the evening at Mitchell Library, the principal reading library in Glasgow. That was where I discovered the fascination of reading fiction and books of travel. My father was disappointed that I was not expanding my understanding of the science of engineering and the technical aspects of the profession when he learned of how I was spending my evenings. I tried to tell him that all work and no play was not good for me but was not very convincing, I fear. It left a void between my father and I just before his death that I have always reflected on with regret.

Not being members of a church, we had no minister at my father’s funeral. It took place at Lochwinnoch and he was buried in the old churchyard on Johnshill. Only a dozen or so were in attendance. My father’s brother, Uncle John, made a few remarks and a prayer at the graveside. Wm.

Holmes (sitting) of Irvine and Peter Holmes of Glasgow were present. We traveled to and from Glasgow by train in one company. It was a very wet day and the grave my father’s coffin was lowered into had a foot of water in it. It was a day I could never look back on without a feeling of suffering and regret. It was made worse by Uncle John, the sad memory of the day I mean. My mother had ordered dinner for all the company at the principal inn at Lochwinnoch. She did not go out to Lochwinnoch for the funeral because she had to keep the shop open. On the way from the churchyard to the inn John refused to go in for dinner muttering about taking nothing from his sister-in-law’s hands and returned to Glasgow by an earlier train. My mother was very angry when I told her about it. She and Uncle John only met once after that at the bedside of Grandpa Hepburn and they did not have a lot to say to each other then.

Grandpa Crawford (1790-1881)

Grandpa Crawford died when I was six years old. I remember going with my father from Biggar by train to Glasgow on the Caledonian Railway. Then, by the Glasgow and South Western Railway to Lochwinnoch. My mother had been there for some time before that and was there at Grandpa’s passing. The funeral was attended by many hundreds from far and near. I remember the street being crowded with people. It was one of the old Scottish style. There was no hearse. The coffin was carried on three cross poles by six pall bearers, three on each side. My father was one of the bearers. The bearers were relieved half way along the main street to the graveyard. This was in the old place beside the ruins of an old church on the hill that was called Johnshill at the east end of the village. A cousin of my mother, William Holmes, who had a carriage building business at Irvine took me by the hand and led me immediately behind the coffin because I was Grandpa’s only male descendant present. Wm. Holmes had been a clerk in my grandfather’s woollen mill office when he came as a young man from Woodstock, Canada.

Grandma Crawford (1809-1891)

My Grandma Crawford’s funeral was ten years later. I was 16 then and had just started my apprenticeship in an engineering shop. Although I was present, I don’t seem able to recall it as well as my grandfather’s. She was buried in the Crawford family plot beside her dear ones.

My grandmother was an energetic old woman. She had a will of iron and many were the stories my mother told when she was in a reminiscent mood of things which had happened in her younger days.

Grandma was a great supporter of the United Presbyterian Church and took a decided stand on the voluntary spirit and democratic principles in church work. The leading grocer at that time (before the time of James Orr) took the opposite view. There was much argument and strong feelings arose. He sent Grandma at the height of the controversy a box of small green apples with a ticket inside marked, “With the compliments of Mrs. Crawford’s opponents.”

When she was a widow she was invited to a banquet given by Joseph Johnstone, the head of a new chair factory that had started in the town within sight of Grandma’s back windows. Joe Johnstone was just starting out and had all his employees and their wives along with the village notables gathered to hear his plans for the new enterprise. I think Grandma had invested a little money in the venture and was seated at Joe Johnstone’s left hand. In the course of his speech he boasted grandly of all that he was going to do in the future by reviving the industries of the valley, etc. Grandma thought he had gone too far and kept her hand on his coattail and at every approach to another boast she tugged the coattails to calm his exuberance. Joe was equal to the occasion, however, and stopped in the middle of a high-flown sentence. He turned his head a little saying, “Now, Mrs. Crawford, you needn’t pull at my coattails. I am going to say just what I want.” She had to let the coattail go when the roar of laughter went round the tables.

One day my mother and I came out to Lochwinnoch for a weekend holiday from Glasgow. Grandma was over eighty then. We found no one at home but her door was not locked so we asked the neighbours for news of her. We were told she had been seen going down the street to Tom Cochrane’s who kept some milk cows at the barn behind his house. When we reached Cochrane’s door Grandma came out drying her hands on a towel. “What have you been doing?” asked my mother. “Oh, just helping a poor cow with its first calf,” said Grandma. “I’ve been at that job before, you know and Tom here hasn’t got any more gumption than the cow had.” “You should give that up at your age,” said my mother. “Well, its good to see a calf coming right and able to get up on its own feet. Come away to the house and we’ll have a cup of tea.” I didn’t know much about calves coming then but I know Grandma had more knowledge than I had. She had been brought up on a farm.

My mother went out to Lochwinnoch in March 1891 to nurse Grandma Crawford in her last illness. She had had a sister whom my mother called Aunt Watt to help her for a week or two previous to my mother’s arrival. She was nine years younger than Grandma. Aunt Watt had married a farmer in Lanark but was then a widow. Grandma told my mother when she arrived that she was glad to get rid of Jacobina Watt for she had no hands for nursing a useless body. She had a growth in the bowels that gradually got worse closing the necessary passage. Her doctor had told her that he could do no more. He was the old doctor who had called on her for help in his emergency cases. “Never mind, doctor,” said Grandma from her bed. “We have all to go sometime. Don’t fret yourself about me.” She gradually got weaker but before the end with my mother at the bedside Grandma turned her head on the pillow and said, “Get a pencil and paper, Jessie.” She waited a bit for another effort and then said, “I want you to make a list of the folk to invite to the dinner after the funeral and the men who will be my pall bearers.” Then she gave my mother the names one by one. At the finish she told my mother to get in touch with Robert Connell the joiner to get him started on the coffin. A good plain one with no fancy work on it. She gave instructions to be buried beside her husband, William Crawford and her son, William Crawford, Jnr. She was to tell the minister not to spend too much time at his services at the graveside. “The weather is cold, yet.”

She passed away a day or two after that on the 9^th April, 1891. Agnes Crawford was a relation to be proud of. She left her mark on the annals of the village by her grit and courage. Many old folk spoke to my sister and I of how glad they were that they had known her. Old James Wylie used to say to me, “Tommy, your grandmother was one in a hundred.”