Tombstone Tuesday: my Ramsay great grandparents

My mother’s paternal grandparents; David Ramsay and Mary Fisher.

Against the wall in Dysart Cemetery, is the grave of my great grandparents David Ramsay and Mary Fisher, along with their daughter Jean. They are the only Ramsay relatives I could find in Dysart, and although the grave wasn’t overgrown, it doesn’t look as though it’s regularly tended.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the family, probably because I don’t know very much about them. My great grandparents died before I was born, and even my grandad died when I was eleven. I have no memories of meeting any of his siblings, though my mum assures me I did.

My grandfather David Ramsay (top right) with his parents and siblings.

Looking at the photos of the Ramsays my mum gave me, they mostly looked happy – especially my great grandfather.

David Skinner Ramsay and Mary Fisher; their fiftieth wedding anniversary.

I really like the simplicity of my great grandparents’ headstone – and particularly the line “worthy of remembrance.”

I don’t think you could really say anything better about someone.

Wordless Wednesday: father of the bride (fifth and final time)

My grandfather David Ramsay, escorts his fifth and youngest daughter Sandra into church on her wedding day.
Dysart, Fife, 1960.

Not a kiss … but another celebration of marriage

My maternal grandparents celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary in 1951.

The last couple of “kiss” photos I posted got me thinking about the couples in my family, and actually how few photographs I have. None of my parents (without the kids) and only this one of my maternal grandparents.

David Skinner Ramsay and Margaret Simpson Bissett Cruden  were married in on 21 December 1926. Grandad was 25, Gran was 18. He was a coalminer, she a shop assistant. Both lived in Dysart, Fife, Scotland. They raised six children and remained married for 47 years, until my grandad’s death in 1973.

When my grandmother was widowed, she started travelling – to New Zealand to visit us, then Australia to see her brother and his family. She went to Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) to visit her only son, and back to Australia. In the last 15 or so years of her life she mainly stayed in Europe, but still managed to clock up an impressive number of miles for a woman who had never left the UK until she was in her mid 60s.

My gran died in 2006 – a week short of her 98th birthday. By that stage she had 17 grandchildren, 26(ish) great grandchildren, and a couple of great, great grandchildren.

She’s the grandparent I knew best and the only one I spent time with when I was an adult. Thinking back on all the hours we spent drinking tea and scoffing coffee meringues (her favourite), I wonder why I never asked her all the questions I now have about her life – her childhood, marriage, parents. Back then I just wasn’t that “into” family.

Now, a mother myself, I’m determined that my son will know more about his ancestry than I do about mine, and in particular the stories of lives and loves and death that make the past alive for us.