A father's final letter to a son

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I've been sorting through several bins of decades worth of photographs, letters and other mementos collected by my parents and grandparents. It's a massive and very long overdue task, and I admit that it's slow going.

One reason this project is slow going is because of the many discoveries that I'm making. And in many cases, I stop the work and get lost in thought, pondering over photos or letters, like this letter that surfaced this week.

The letter is from my great grandfather to his son, my grandfather, and is written from a hospital, undated, except for the year: 1908. My great grandfather would then have been 74 years old. I don't know what town the hospital was, only that it is where my grandfather's "Aunt Maggie lives."  This was probably my great aunt, Margaret Grace Darling Ross Gillies.

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My great grandfather, Frank Gillanders Matheson, was recovering from an operation that left him a shadow of his former self, he wrote. What was that operation for, I wonder? He could no longer work, and said he had to leave the house where he and Annie, my great grandmother, lived. Their 28 year old blind and mentally challenged son, Alex would certainly have been with them, and possibly their daughter Annie, with her infant son, Andrew. The rest of their surviving children were living elsewhere, in service or apprenticed.

As can be seen here, Frank's faith played a large part in his life. He possessed a three-volume bible, in fact, that I wrote about here and as I noted in my last post, was a deacon at his local church. He was a devout Presbyterian. 

Frank's comments about his loneliness in hospital and about some of the people in his life give a brief insight into 1908 life in the Scottish Highlands. Is it odd that he doesn't mention his wife? I don't know.

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I don't think that in the end, Frank and Annie had to move, as his death registration notes that he died at the Railway Cottages at Delfaber, Duthil. But such a great worry that must have been.

My grandfather, John, emigrated from Scotland to Montreal in June 1907. I know he didn't get to see his father, Frank Gillanders Matheson again, as Frank died in June 1909. That he kept this 1908 letter from his father the rest of his life speaks volumes, doesn't it?

The never ending story continues....

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