It's a long way from Chicago...

Rotary International is an organisation of 1.2 million who devote their time to charitable works and sharing fellowship together. It all began in 1900 in Chicago with a chap called Paul Harris. He had the good fortune to marry a Scotswoman - Jean Thomson They married on 2 July 1910 in Chicago.

The Harrises lived in a house called Comely Bank after the street in Edinburgh where Jean had lived as a child. They entertained friends from Chicago and around the world, and hosted meetings and reunions of the Rotary Club of Chicago.

The couple never had children, and Jean often joined Harris during his travels to Rotary clubs worldwide. After Harris died in 1947, Jean briefly continued to live at Comely Bank. She later sold the house and, in 1955, returned to her native Edinburgh, where she died in 1963.

She is buried in Newington Cemetery - a bit of a run down place in the south side of Edinburgh - interesting for its carefully fenced off area for the Jewish residents of this part of town.

I don't suppose (heresy here) that Harris was all that easy a husband - a bit driven! And I wonder whether the final epitaph on Jean's gravestone doesn't speak volumes?