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Messages - diane747

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1
Fife / Re: Burial/Cremation in Fife 1942 - Information sought
« on: Monday 27 February 23 22:16 GMT (UK)  »
Thank you Margow, I have sent a reply.

2
Fife / Re: Burial/Cremation in Fife 1942 - Information sought
« on: Saturday 25 February 23 04:17 GMT (UK)  »
Hello again Margo, so sorry for the delay in replying to your last message.
Thank you so much for all the research and detailed information you have provided. I had no idea about the area and the information you shared about Maple Street etc. It is certainly making sense and giving more substance to my theory.

Yes, the Robert Buist you mention is the father of Jane Brady m.s. Buist (my Great Great Grandfather). I believe that he continued to live with Jane and her her husband John (and family) until his death.
It is a great idea to contact Bereavement Services in relation to his death/burial, as it is quite likely Helen may have been buried in the same place - given the closeness in timeframe of their deaths (and the age of Helen and her husband at the time of Helen's death). I imagine money would have been tight with a young son, and some reliance on John's parents (as both Helen's parents were long deceased) may have been necessary. Conjecture, of course, from the information/facts I do have.

I will make contact with them again and ask about Robert Buist, and I will also email the Pathhead Church.

I am extremely grateful for all the help I have received from you and others in this forum.

Diane

3
Fife / Re: Burial/Cremation in Fife 1942 - Information sought
« on: Wednesday 15 February 23 07:27 GMT (UK)  »
Thank you Annie,
No I haven't emailed them - I didn't have that information, so thank you very much for including it. I will do as you suggest.
Thanks again,
Diane

4
Fife / Re: Burial/Cremation in Fife 1942 - Information sought
« on: Saturday 11 February 23 23:24 GMT (UK)  »
Hi Margow,

Thank you so much for the information about Crematoriums in Kirkcaldy and Dunfermline - and where people from that area would likely have been cremated at the time! It is extremely helpful to know this, as I had no idea.

In relation to the my parents and local relatives trying to visit Helen's grave, it was in March, 1981.  My parents went back to Scotland for a holiday and to spend time with family. The relatives were Helen's husband's siblings, who Helen and her husband, John, had lived with - and who my father (Helen and John's son) went to live with and was raised by, after Helen died (my father was 2 yo at the time of Helen's death). 

The diary entry by my mother is only short.  Mum states that they had been to 'look at Grandad's grave' (John's father, buried in Hayfield Cemetery, Kirkcaldy), which 'had a new headstone'.  The entry continues - "Tried to find Helen's grave but the yard was all locked up and overgrown" (which she then describes only as being like the old graveyard in the town she lived in Tasmania - which at the time was very old, with mostly crumbling/broken tombstones and overgrown with weeds, gorse, native trees/plants etc.). "Couldn't find a key anywhere". The next sentence says they then took the relatives on "a wee tour around Kirkcaldy, over their own childhood jaunts".

That is all I have but it confirmed for me that Helen must have been buried, and that it was likely somewhere close to Kirkcaldy (at least within a relatively short driving distance, I would presume).

As an aside - my thinking around Patthead as being a possibility for where Helen may be buried comes from the following -
the Reverend who was thanked in the Acknowledgement notice in The Fife Free Press, delivered services at a church in Pathhead around the time Helen died;
Pathhead appears to have/have had a locked, gated cemetery that was overgrown and in a state of disrepair at the time of my parent's visit;
John's father is cited as having previously lived at 1 Mid Street, West End, Kirkcaldy Burgh, overlooking the Pathhead graveyard;
John's mother's maiden name is Buist and there are records showing that her father also lived at this address  (1 Mid Street-, West End);
and most recently I have found out
there is a plot at the Pathhead graveyard where 9 members of the Buist family are interred (although I am yet to research to see if they are directly related to John's mother).

May all be just leading me down a rabbit hole but with no record of Helen's burial, I have been/and continue to go down many of those in my quest to find where she is buried.

Many thanks,
Diane

5
Fife / Re: Burial/Cremation in Fife 1942 - Information sought
« on: Wednesday 08 February 23 09:57 GMT (UK)  »
Thank you so much for that information Dorrie. I did wonder whether church graveyards may have kept their own records. I will retrace my previous research as I’m sure I read somewhere that the Pathhead Church documents had been destroyed in a fire at some point but it was quite a while ago I was down that path so my brain could be a bit fuzzy on that. It’s certainly worth following up the possibility that her record may have been lost - especially given the situation you shared about your family. Many thanks Dorrie. 
Diane

6
Fife / Re: Burial/Cremation in Fife 1942 - Information sought
« on: Wednesday 08 February 23 03:16 GMT (UK)  »
Thank you Annie, I will look into getting email addresses for the crematoriums you suggest and enquire with them. Given there has been no card raised by the Fife Council, it is a possibility she may have been cremated.  I would have thought the family would have been aware of that but we make lots of assumptions.
Diane

7
Fife / Re: Burial/Cremation in Fife 1942 - Information sought
« on: Wednesday 08 February 23 01:22 GMT (UK)  »
Further Note/Correction - scotmum I have just realised that the (N) before the name Nelly relates to the Nether Street Burial Ground. The Monumental Inscriptions are for Pathhead Churchyard 1733 - 1975 and Nether Street Burial Ground 1725 - 1935.
Helen/Nellie was buried in 1942, so unfortunately that rules that out. Back to the drawing board. :(

8
Fife / Re: Burial/Cremation in Fife 1942 - Information sought
« on: Wednesday 08 February 23 01:11 GMT (UK)  »
Thank you scotmum.
I had previously ordered a copy and went through it but came up nought. Your reminder of it, however, jolted me to go through it again, and while there are so many graves that haven't been able to be deciphered, there is one that is listed just as (N) Nelly.  It may be nothing but Helen's name recorded on her birth certificate was Nellie, and she was apparently known by this name (as well as Ellen) prior to her marriage to my grandfather, where it was registered as 'Helen'. Family stories confirm she changed it when she got married. I wonder if this could be her grave? And how I might go about finding this out... Hmmm

Annie, I am not upset at all by your post and thoughts about whether bodies may have been handed over for research in that era. I have no idea about this but all possibilities and considerations are welcome, as I have come to a standstill with the path I have been following.   
One of my own wonderings was, in a time where there were lots of infectious diseases and my grandmother died with pneumonia in the 'Fever Hospital', whether cremation may have been common practice for people dying at the Fever Hospital...?  I have no real information about the practices of the hospital, or the times, so I am flying blind really.
 

9
Fife / Re: Burial/Cremation in Fife 1942 - Information sought
« on: Tuesday 07 February 23 22:36 GMT (UK)  »
Thank you Annie for all your great suggestions.

In answer to your questions, as she was unfortunately only 21 years old when she died, her husband remarried and died many years later, in Zimbabwe and was buried there.  So she is not buried with/near him.
Her mother died young (when Helen was 9) in England where they lived at the time, and Helen moved with her father to Glasgow, where he was from. He was buried with (his) family (I have the burial records for the lair) but there is no record of Helen having been interred with them. It is unlikely that her body would have been taken to England to be buried near her mother, I would think(?)

When my mum and dad visited relatives in Fife some years ago - who Helen had lived with not so long before she died - Mum noted in her diary that they all went to visit Helen's grave but that when they got there, the gates were locked and it was very run down. So they weren't able to access.

Helen's husband had once lived in Pathhead, overlooking the cemetery there, and my research led me to think this may be a possibility of where she is buried. There had been a mention of thanks to a Rev. A. Morton Price by the family in the Acknowledgements posted in the Fife free Press - who I discovered conducted services at the E U Congregational Church in Pathhead at that time.
This cemetery is apparently gated and very run down, with many headstones unable to be deciphered. I did try to get information, however her name was not on any of the visibly named headstones, and apparently records were destroyed by fire some years ago.
 
In 2021, another member of this forum assisted in finding the Death Notice in The Fife Free Press, on 20 June 1942 - (Helen died on 4th June) but no funeral notice or mention of burial or cremation was found.
 
It's all a bit of a mystery - hence why I am trying to find out why there would not have been a card raised/held for her by the Fife Council, if she was buried in Fife (could that be possible?). Or if this means that she definitely wasn't buried in Fife and the family had it wrong?

With thanks,
Diane

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