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Monument Inscription
Has no inscription
Family History
What appears now as a decapitated stone memorial was when complete an elaborately prepared monument of size and value, dedicated to a person named Agnes MacDonald, who died at the very advanced age of ninety-two years on October 5th, 1890.
The inscription appended to the stone indicates that the monument was erected by a person named Christina McMillan, but no other indication as to this person’s relationship with the deceased is apparent.
Agnes MacDonald’s origins are unclear but thought likely to have lain in the Highlands of Scotland. Her father had been a farmer called Donald MacDonald and her mother was Marion McAllister. No records have been discovered of either the marriage of Agnes’s parents or her birth, which might suggest they lived in an isolated community without easy access to officialdom.
If this were the case it might explain why Agnes came to the parish of Mearns as she was employed as a bleachfield worker, such occupation being heavily staffed by females from the northern parts of Scotland as well as Ireland.
She never married and lived to the very advanced age of ninety-two years before being laid to rest in Mearns Kirkyard. Her death was registered by her neighbour George. B. Nelson of Newton who gave her age as being ninety which appears on her death certificate but her memorial says otherwise.
The upper part of this monument was discovered abandoned in another part of the graveyard.