The Best Day of Our Trip

   We had done all we could from 4,000 miles away, but it looked like we might not be successful. We had read the book that talked about Mayre's mother's Scotland family and the area that she grew up in. We had read the journal of her trip back in 1964 and the people she met in those Scottish towns. We had done the genealogical research on the family, and we had been in contact with a lady in Scotland, given her our information and received her report as to where we might look when we got there.

   But now on Day 10 of our British Isles cruise, we were on our way from the harbor at Greenock toward Carluke, wondering out loud how successful we might be in finding the two houses mentioned in these reports and journals. It was this quest that began our thinking about this trip, many years previous.

   Our driver, Tom, had been given all we knew, and he was making it his personal quest to help us in ours.

   Arriving in Carluke, we first went to the cemetery where Mamie's (Mayre's mother) father was buried. He was a minister of the United Presbyterian Church, but had to resign his very first pastorate because of health reasons. Mamie was born in 1893 and his death was in 1895.

In Loving Memory 

of

The Rev. John Gray MA

Minister of the UP Church

Rothesay

Who Died at Hillhead Carluke

March 2nd 1895 Aged 39 Years

   This was the tombstone of my wide's Grandfather.

   After this stop, we proceeded to the area south of Carluke where a cottage with the name Hillhead was supposed to be. Our lady in Scotland had sent a picture of the house she had discovered, but our road names and directions did not produce its actual location. After stopping and asking at a gas station, we retraced our route to look once again. Turning off the Lanark road onto Bullhead road, we spotted a cottage on the left as we turned onto Bullhead. The trees had completely blocked its view from the main Lanark road, and we could not even see the front of the house (which was our picture view), so Tom stopped and asked. It was the right place, and the owner was happy to show us around. He even remembered that he had been told when he bought the place 30 years ago, that it was once owed by a retired minister, and once we got around to the small front yard we could see that it was actually the house of our old picture.

   The house had been added to on the Bullhead Road side, and the look changed, but it was the one we were looking for, the one where her mother had been born and spent the first few years of her life

   It was exciting for my wife, and all of us for that matter, for her to see that place and relive some of the history that she had been told by her mother.

   Mayre would go on to say that "this day was the best of the whole trip and worth all the trouble to get there".

   But there is more to this story…

   To be continued...