Mary Rae

Today's the day ...................... for a previous owner

We had a delivery of logs today from a local chap that we're always pleased to see.  His logs are good and it's always interesting to talk to him because his great grandmother once owned the house that we now live in.

He brought a family photograph album with him today and he has kindly left it for us to have a look at.  It's absolutely fascinating to see pictures of the house that we now know so well, looking a bit different but still very recognisable - with other people who felt equally at home in it, as we do.  That's it from the road in extras, when the front door was still at the front.  There's a window there now.  And there was a stone wall round the front garden with railings on top that has completely disappeared.

The picture above I think is Mary Rae, the great grandmother mentioned before - and the owner of the house.  She bought it in 1918, and it's her name on the deeds, unusual back then when married women handed everything over to their husbands.  Her husband, John, died in 1923 but she continued to live here with her daughter, Bella, until her own death in 1931.

There are lots of pictures of what must be family members visiting the house, sitting outside in the sun in the garden.  This one is particularly interesting to us because it shows the bridge, over the adjacent road, that once carried the railway line from Castle Douglas to Kirkcudbright.  

But they all show that it has been a place full of life and no doubt, happy memories, for lots of people over time ......................