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Monument Inscription
IN REM[EMBRANCE]
OF
MY DEAR M[OTH]ER
MARY PARK ANGUS
DIED 22nd MARCH 1905 AGED 47 YEARS
ALSO
OUR DEAR DAUGHTER
MARY PARK TAYLOR
DIED 24TH NOV. 1927
AGED 21 YEARS
Family History
Time and man have not been kind to this monument as shown in the accompanying photograph. It is entirely probable that through time and its light construction the monument has been moved from its original resting place.
This grave marker constructed of marble in the shape of a thin slab tablet has been shattered into several pieces. Despite this poor condition the inscription is able to be read and tells the following tale.
The person responsible for its creation is the daughter of the first named on the inscription and the mother of the second named. All is not always as it appears and this memorial is not immune from this phenomenon.
In both inscriptions displayed it has been discovered that certain middle names attributed to these persons have been omitted. It may be that the lack of space available dictated the content but in one case there may be more sinister reasons.
Mary Angus Park or to give her full name Mary Russell Johnston Park or Angus was shown to be illegitimate by birth, but her parents are given as Robert Park, a farmer by occupation, and Margaret Johnston. She married William Angus, a railway platelayer, and set up home in the village of Newton. Mary when she died in 1905 was residing at the Newton Inn in the village, the home of her half-sister Una Porter. She was to die of a bowel obstruction due to ulceration aged only forty-seven years.
How many children this woman raised is unknown, but one such was a daughter given the name Margaret. Margaret was to reside at 3 Barrhead Road, Newton Mearns, with her husband Robert Taylor, an insurance agent. They had a daughter whom they named after Margaret’s mother and the child’s grandmother, Mary Johnston Park Taylor. This girl entered employment with one of the local cloth works where she became a bleach field worker. Tragically at age twenty-one years, she contracted acute suppurative tonsillitis and without access to modern drugs the poison created by this condition took her life in 1927.
Somewhere under the soil of Mearns Kirkyard lie a grandmother and granddaughter not only united in death but in name also.