The Best Day (Part II)

   Little did I realize, when putting our cruise trip together, what one day of the whole 2 weeks would mean to all concerned. Looking back from this time vantage point, I can tell some of it at least.

   When the friends who had gone with us wrote the other day, his line was:

"We also had a ball on the trip.  The visits to Mrs. Jorges' childhood home and place of work were meaningful to us because we were able to see just how much they meant to Mayre Lou."

   That probably sums up my take also. I knew my wife wanted to go and see all that, but just did not realize what the impact would be, or turned out to be. Even to this day, as she reads some of the things that I have written and looks at the pictures of that day, she tends to tear up and say something like "I can't believe we got to do all of this".

    But we do need to look at this day some more.

   After the visit to Carluke, the cemetery and the Hillhead cottage there, we took off for the village of Hyndford Bridge. We had a house name, but no specific address, so we just went. When we did not spot anything on the way through, we continued on to Lanark where we did have the name and address of the factory where Mamie was a bookkeeper after she finished school. We found it.

   When she worked there, the name was A MacDougall, and we found that name on one of the old doors.

   Everyone was leaving for lunch, so we just snapped a couple of shots and went to get a bite ourselves.

   While we were inside the cafe getting something to eat in the car, Tom was in the van making calls. I'm not sure what he did, but he ended up talking to the lady who lived in the house we were looking for. She gave him directions and off we went back to Hyndford Bridge.

   The couple that lived in that house had occupied it for 49 years. Their last name was Bennie, and they invited us in to see the place and what they had done with it. It was a neat house, and hard to realize that it had been built back in the 1850s.

   The husband wanted me to see his flowers out back, so we did. When I asked him about the name of one of them, he just said "You will have to ask my wife, I grow them, but she knows them."

   It was a great experience, getting to meet with these folks, ask questions and hear of their life there for the past half century. They were good people.

   Seeing these places on this day answered a lot of the questions that Mayre had about her Mom in her growing up days, before coming to America, but it also brought up a lot more that we had never asked.
Like:

   Where did she go to school?

   What kind of school and how far from her home?

   How did she get to school and later on to work in Lanark?

   How did they shop? Where?

   You just can't know the questions to ask that would put her in this place, until you see how it is laid out, and now it is too late to ask those who lived it,

   But all those unanswered things did not dampen our day and neither did any rain. It was a great day, one that will be remembered fondly for years. My only regret was that we did not do it sooner. Oh well, better late than never, I guess.

   My wife says with conviction, "This was the best day ever".

   And we are both Thankful...