Anne Ogilvie Memoirs

A Record of some Incidents in the Life of Anne Ogilvie (nee Maxwell)

with added reminiscences by her daughter Mary I Ogilvie

Incidents in the Life of Anne Ogilvie (nee Maxwell)	1
Added Reminiscences by Mary Ogilvie	9

Incidents in the Life of Anne Ogilvie (nee Maxwell)

A Record of some incidents in my life which
I think may be interesting
to
my Children and Grandchildren.

A. O.

Begun November 1901

I was born on March 26th, 1822 in my father’s house in Tay Street, Dundee.  My father had been a doctor in Jamaica for 30 years, and when he returned to his native place he married my mother Elizabeth Stormonth, daughter of the late minister of Airlie, Forfarshire.  They had a family of eight children and I was the third daughter.  After me came two sons, then three daughters again.  Four of us survive.  Isabella – Mrs Ferguson – in Western Australia, Elizabeth – Mrs Carment, and my sister Mary the youngest, and unmarried.  We have been a most united family and all fond of each other.

My earliest recollection is of being taken to Perth by my father when I was five or six years of age, and given in charge of the guard of the Stage Coach to Inverness, to be delivered over to my uncle by marriage the Rev David Fraser of Dores.  He came to meet me and took me to my aunt at the Manse.  Here I lived for about a year, and having then no children of their own, they just spoilt me and let me have my own way in everything.  Once when I was ill and was taking what they thought might be measles or scarlet fever – for we had no doctor – my uncle took me into his study which opened out on to the lawn in front of the house and brought me a cup of senna tea.  I would not drink it.  He offered me 6d if I would – but no – then 1/- then 2/6 when he gave up in despair.  I got better without it.  Another trial of obstinacy was wanting to come into the study for a lesson every morning; when the time arrived I always went and hid in the woods and that attempt too had to be given up.  But I got strong and well and that was far better than education.  I may mention here that when I came home I remember walking down Tay Street with my father who was taking me to school for the first time, and his saying to me, “was I not ashamed of being 7 years old and not knowing my letters?”  He acknowledged afterwards that I learned more quickly than any of the others.

I was not always good or happy at Dores, for I remember distinctly being put in a closet off the drawing-room for a punishment – but what my fault was I have no recollection – but this I remember, that it was the first time I ever consciously prayed to God.  I had said my prayers before but never really prayed.  After being about a year there, my father and mother came for me and I remember sitting beside them on top of the coach, with the same guard with his red coat and horn.  I went to various schools in Dundee till I was sixteen when I went to Edinburgh to finish my education, or rather to begin it, for it was only then that I really began to enjoy my lessons, and my mind to open to what was taught me.

My two elder sisters had been at school in Edinburgh before me – Isabella at Miss Porteous’s and Elizabeth at Miss Crymble’s.  I went with Elizabeth at the beginning of her second year and remained part of the next year by myself.  It was while my sister Elizabeth was at school that I drew much nearer to my eldest sister Isabella.  It was the time when there was a religious awakening in the country especially in Dundee, and she threw herself heartily into it.  Many were the talks we had together – indeed religion was almost our sole topic of conversation at that time.  The Rev Robert Murray McCheyne had just come to St Peters and he seemed to bring us a new gospel.  We sat in the East Church and though Dr Adie was a good man his sermons were dry and common-place and did not touch our hearts.  My sister took me to hear Mr McCheyne and he told us that Jesus Christ was a loving Saviour longing to save us if we would but come to Him.

I ought to mention that before this my Aunt Stormonth had taken my sister Elizabeth and me to hear Mr Reid of the Chapelshade and the impression left on my mind was the need of the Holy Spirit to enlighten our souls, and I think his teaching prepared us to receive Mr McCheyne’s gospel of a present Salvation.  We were always praying for the Holy Spirit but then we had not accepted Jesus as our personal Saviour.  It was a long time before I found peace in mind, for I thought – what is my warrant to accept Christ?

About this time we went to Blairgowrie for the summer and I attended the Rev Francis Gillies's church at Rattray.  One day he was calling on us and there were none but Elizabeth and me at home.  I remember of thinking now here is a minister (and we held them in greater honour than we do now) and I am sure he could solve some of my questions, so I asked him the meaning of some text of scripture, I forget what, but it showed him that we girls were thinking on religious subjects.  Another time when I met him I asked him what my warrant of Salvation was, he said “Look unto me all ye ends of the earth and be saved” [Isaiah 45 v 22]; did not that include me, and that brought great peace to my mind, also the text “Whosoever cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out” [John 6 v 37] and these texts comfort me still.

After that I went to school in Edinburgh and there my religious impressions were deepened.  I remember especially one evening Mr Moody (afterwards Moody-Stewart) of St Luke's came to address the girls and his prayer specially struck me.  That night began a life-long friendship with Angelica Fraser.  We found that both of us were seeking after God and we agreed to learn chapters of the Bible to say to each other while we were out walking.  In this manner we learned Eph II [Ephesians Chapter 2] and Col III [Colossians Chapter 3].  I was about a year and a half at Miss Crymble's, and a very happy time I had.  My mind was awakening I fancy, and I found the teaching of the masters much more interesting than that of the Dundee ones, though I had been well grounded by them.  My father always said he would at least give his children a good education.  I was a year and two terms at Edinburgh, and would have been a third had not Miss Crymble married and the school been given up.  

By this time my sister Isabella was married to Dr Ferguson, and lived in a house in Tay St nearly opposite us.  Going there was always a pleasure, for she was a true sister to us, but the greatest interest in my life was when Dr Roxburgh their Minister started the visitation of his Parish by ladies.  We went two and two to the district allocated to us, and I mention this because it led to my marriage – the next important step in my life.  Rachel Ogilvie was one of his parishioners, and asked if I might be her companion in her district.  We had met at the Clothing Society, but though born and brought up in the same town we did not know each other before.  She put her whole heart into her visiting, going up many flights of stairs in all parts of the town for Clothing Society Cases – the East Port, the Vault, and many out-of-the-way places.  When she went home, naturally at meals she recounted our experiences and often brought in my name.  One day her brother John said “I wish you would let us see this Anne Maxwell.”  Accordingly I was invited to tea, and I remember I was struck with the unanimity of the family, and how fond they were of their parents.  My sister Elizabeth and I were afterwards invited to a small party, and I was rather astonished when John asked me to dance instead of my elder sister.  One of the tunes of the quadrilles was “I'm ower young, I'm ower young, I'm ower young to marry yet.”  He asked me if I thought that, and I answered emphatically “Yes.”  I was not thinking of marrying then at all.  I may here mention that these small dances were the height of our gaieties – we never went to balls.  These were only quadrilles and country dances in a carpeted room.

Sometimes the elders were asked to dinner, and the younger ones of the family at seven o' clock when there was dancing, and a tray brought in for supper.  I wonder quadrilles have gone out, many a nice conversation have I had with my partners at them.  I think it must have been at one of them when dancing with John Ogilvie, that I broached the subject of religion, which indeed the whole town was talking of.  It was when Mr McCheyne first came to Dundee, when crowds flocked to hear him  Though a strictly moral man, John Ogilvie had never given much attention to religion before, but now his mind was awakening, and when we met that was almost the one topic of conversation.

At that time I had no intention of marrying, nor perhaps had he, for he was devoted to his only sister Rachel, but when she got engaged to Dr Duncan and was going out to India with him, she was anxious that her brother should have a wife, and he nothing loath asked me when we were out for a walk at Newport.  And so it came to pass that we were engaged in the summer of 1840, and we were married in December 8th of that year.  It was the custom then for couples to be married in the house in the evening, so accordingly a party of relations on both sides met in the drawing-room of 23 Tay St, my father's house, my sisters being brides-maids, and I think Miss Annie Wedderburn-Ogilvy.  I never regretted the step, and I don't think my dear husband did either, though I am sure I must often have tried him.  I was only 18 years of age and he 30, so he was father as well as husband to me.  We took as our motto, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all other things will be added unto you” [Matthew 6 v 33].  I am sorry to say he had not the same comfort in religion as I had, for he had such a high ideal he would never let me say he was a Christian.  He would only say “Pray for me”, but all his conduct was guided by what he thought right in God's sight, and it often shamed me when I saw how he acted religion, though I spoke more.  He took sittings in Mr McCheyne's Church without consulting me, because he knew I would like it.  Our parents on both sides sat in the old church, and we were told that one of the ministers, Dr Adie who married us, refused to stay to supper, when he heard we were leaving his church.

Our early married life was spent in Hawkhill Place, where five children were born to us, Jamie, Annie, Rachel, Bessie and Johnny.  Jamie and Annie were a great delight to us, and engrossed all our care till Rachel came, three and a half years after I think.  Jamie was a very clever little fellow, you could teach him almost anything.  He could read when he was three years old; I may say he taught himself, for he would run after me in the house asking “What does C A N spell?” and so on with other words.  When Annie was about 5 or 6 we sent them both to a lady's school, Miss Henderson's because Miss Walker did not take little boys, but when Miss Henderson gave up we sent Annie to Miss Walker and Jamie to the Seminaries, as the public school was then called.

During the time we were in Hawkhill Place, we had many sorrows as well as pleasures.  The first of these was the death of my husband's brother Duncan, a fine young man of about 23.  He was the life of the family, for the other brothers were quiet, and he was engaged to Catherine Neish, afterwards Mrs Erskine Scott.  He caught typhus fever, and died after a fortnight's illness.  I went one day to ask for him, and found his mother airing some flannels to put to his feet, and she asked me if I should like to see him.  She took me to the open door of the room, it was then I first saw the unmistakable mark of death on a face.  I shall never forget the beautiful look on his fine manly countenance, though it was unspeakably sad.  His mother was long in getting over his death, and it was perhaps good for her to have to nurse her son Andrew, who had also taken fever but recovered.

Then there was the death of my brother William, a fine young man of 26, cut down in his prime.  He was next to me in the family, and he inspired me with his love of poetry, music and drawing.  He was in an office in Liverpool, after serving an apprenticeship to Baxter Brothers, Dundee.  He got a wetting at a fancy fair, took fever, and died.  My mother and sister Maggie, and Mr Bethune went to him, but he had died before they reached him.  My brother James was with him, and during a moment of consciousness he said “William, I'm come to take you home.”  His body was brought home, and he was buried in the Howff of Dundee, beside my father.  This was as life in a spiritual sense, to my brother James, because William's death so impressed him, that he became out and out a Christian man.  It was about this time when his regiment was at Londonderry, that he met Miss Margaret Gilmour, whom he afterwards married.  The memory of her is very sweet, and I look back with the greatest pleasure, to a long visit I paid to her in Edinburgh when Jim was a baby.  It would take up too much space were I to enlarge on all she was to us as a family.  My mother was very fond of her, and she was a good daughter-in-law.

I must not forget good old Betsy who was so faithful to our family for about thirty years, and I must go back to 1841 when Jamie was still a baby.  She came to me when he was about six months old.  She had buried her husband William Auld, and only child in Quebec, and had come home to live with her brother who was a confidential clerk to Mr Peter Duncan, and earned her living by taking in ironing.  She gave all her affections to my children, and was the greatest blessing to the family, though I must say she was a little trying sometimes as old Scotch servants often were.  I don't think she had a thought but for the good of my children, and I knew they would learn nothing but good in the nursery.  She had a very superior mind, above anything low or mean, and inspired the children with the same high principles.  To show the difference between then and now, she came for £8 a year, which was then thought a good wage.  It was a very happy time in Hawkhill Place, though we had the usual anxieties and cares of a family – children's complaints, measles, whooping cough etc., which they took rather severely.  Though Betsy was invaluable in nursing, she always took the gloomy side, and often told me “That bairn's far worse than ye think.”  Fortunately we had rather a cheery doctor, Dr Cocks, and one good his coming did was to cheer me up.

My husband was very fond of home and his children, and if he had us, didn't care for other society.  So we lived very quietly, too much so in his mother's opinion, though she never interfered, and was the best of mothers-in-law.  Office hours at that time were from 10 to 4, and from 6 to 8.  After dinner, between half past four and six, my husband read aloud to me, and we got through a great many interesting books – Macaulay's History, Layard's Nineveh, Dickens etc.  He found my mind could not concentrate itself well, so he tried to teach me Euclid.  We didn't get on very far, for one baby came after another and I had always things to do, but we always kept up our reading.  I remember “Coelebs in Search of a Wife”, by Hannah More giving us great amusement, when I was lying in bed after a confinement.  He always encouraged me to continue the philanthropic work I had begun before we were married, so for many years I continued my district in Hawkhill, and a school over in Dudhope, begun by Mrs Watts, Mrs Fleming's mother.  My duty there was to take the children's school fees.  It was she who taught me to keep accounts correctly, not always so on my part, but still it was what she tried to instill into me.

At this time various Female societies were formed, Jewish, Irish etc.  We had quarterly meetings, and I often had to raise the tune for the psalms at the beginning and end.  I generally chose 'Jackson's'; later on Mary Laird did it.  Had it not been for Betsy looking after the children so well, and rather liking to do it without me, I never could have done so much outside work.  I often felt it good to get away from the little worries of the house and nursery, and I came home in a much better spirit after going the round of my district.  Betsy would sometimes say “There's that trail coming again for mamma” and certainly some of my good friends did take up rather much of my time.  There was one thing, I never allowed anything to interfere with the time I gave to my husband, for he worked hard in the office, and I liked always to be at leisure when he came home.

I shall here mention a family event, which occurred whilst we were in Hawkhill Place.  My dear sister Isabella and her husband Dr Ferguson went out to Western Australia.  Things were not going very well in Dundee with the doctor, and being brought up in the country – at Dalnabreck in Perthshire – he thought he would throw pills to the wind, as he said, and emigrate.  They first thought of New Zealand, but at that time war had broken out with the Maories, and it was not thought safe to go there.  A brother of Sir John Ogilvy of Baldovan  near Dundee was trying to get people to go to West Australia, which, though one of the oldest colonies was one of the farthest back, owing partly to its being a convict settlement.  Dr Ferguson eventually fixed on it.  He bought land in London from a client, without seeing it, and my husband and a few friends also bought some in order that Dr Ferguson might get back part of his passage money.

After selling their furniture in Tay St they came to live with us, my sister learning ironing, cooking etc.  They advertised for a man and wife to go out with them as servants, and I well remember a respectable looking couple, but very homely in their dress and appearances, offering to go out in that capacity.  They were accepted, and went with them and remained all the time they were in the Bush, and afterwards bought the station (Wedderburn) when Dr Ferguson became Colonial Surgeon in Perth.  This couple were the father and mother of Sir John Forrest, [the first] Premier of Western Australia.  My sister met them afterwards at Government House, but they were always most deferential to her, and never forgot the position they were in, in her family.  My sister is of that nature that I am sure she would always try to put them at their ease with her, and I have no doubt gained their respect, as she respected them.

In 1843 a great event took place, the Disruption of the Church of Scotland.  My husband cast in his lot with the Free Church party, and did a great deal in organising our own congregation of St Peter's on the new lines.  He was Treasurer of the Sustentation Fund, and much of his spare time in the evenings was taken up in checking the collectors' books, which had to be sent out to deacons, who again distributed them among the various collectors.  It was wonderful how much was collected in small weekly sums like a penny, threepence and sixpence.  When any of them neglected their district, Mr Ogilvie promptly called them up for it.  They valued having a business man at the head of the financial affairs of the congregation, though some of them thought it hard.  So much has been written about the Disruption, I cannot enter upon it here, except in regard to what affected us personally.  I well remember the last evening our dear Pastor Mr McCheyne was in Church.  He made a speech in favour of the 'non-intrusion of ministers' as it was called, and I remember after his speech one of the elders handing him his overcoat, for he felt chilly.  We never saw him again, for he was laid down with typhoid fever and died.  He had finished his work and God called him up higher.  Great was the mourning for him, and though only 29, his earnest spirit, holy walk, and faithful preaching left its mark on the town, in the changed lives of many of its inhabitants.  His great friend Mr Andrew Bonar wrote his life, which has had a great circulation, and influenced for good very many lives.  I have myself met with many instances of it.  When people heard I came from Dundee, they asked if I knew Robert Murray McCheyne, and then told me of the good they had got from his published sermons.  I knew him personally a little, and he more than once asked me to go and see him, but so many young people went to him, I rather shrank from taking up his time.  I met him once at the 'Sindrance' of the roads, where Hawkhill joins the Perth Road, and in parting he said “See that you put your hand in Christ's hand, and he will lead you right.”  Another time walking along the Perth Road, where there were some trees budding in the early spring he said “Now see that you are growing in Grace, you may not see much difference in the trees from day to day, but after a time you will.”  Perhaps he was too fond of introspection, but his great anxiety was to awaken us to an interest in our souls.  He inspired us with a great love for the Jews, God's chosen people, his “brethren according to the flesh.”  In his memoir there is a very interesting account of the deputation to Palestine, of which he was a member.  It was while praying for his flock on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, that God graciously sent a revival of religion in St Peter's, by means of the Rev William Burns who was supplying his place and who afterwards went out as a Missionary to China, where he died.  How wonderfully that country has opened up to the gospel and to commerce since then! 

It was at this time I got acquainted with Miss Berrie, a fruit of Mr Burns's ministry, and our friendship continued till she died.  I felt we were not quite the same socially, but she was such an earnest Christian, and indefatigable worker, that I feel I owe much to her.  We two visited in the Scouring Burn, and had Kitchen Meetings for the poor people.  I also visited in the Hawkhill, and had meetings in several of the houses.  I don't know of much good being done, but the way will declare it.  I could not have done what I did, had it not been for our good Betsy, who looked after our children and loved them as her own.  My dear husband also rather encouraged me than otherwise in every good work; it was a busy, happy time.  After Mr McCheyne's death, Mr Islay Burns was called by the congregation to St Peter's, and though different from Mr McCheyne, we soon got to love him, and to value his preaching.  The congregation changed, for naturally those who came from long distances to hear Mr McCheyne left off coming, but Mr Burns gathered round him a devoted people, and he and his wife threw themselves into all the work of the congregation.  When he came first his sister Jane kept house for him.  

The next change was our leaving Hawkhill and moving into 4 Park Place, a very commodious well built house, belonging to a Mrs MacDonald.  When she died my husband bought it.  We were fairly driven out of Hawkhill house, for we had to make the drawing-room into a bedroom, by the doctor's advice, as the nursery was so small.  George was the first to be born in Park Place, and that a few weeks after we moved, June 21st 1851.  Whether it was that I was run down and got cold, but my breasts suppurated and I had to get a wet nurse for him.  After I was quite well again my husband proposed taking me and my sister Kate to London to the first Exhibition.  It was really a Crystal Palace, being all made of glass, and looked like a veritable fairy castle.  The fountain playing in the middle, the beautiful plants and shrubs all round, was a sight never to be forgotten.  It was my first visit to London, and Mr Ogilvie went very systematically to work, mapping out every morning where to go and what to see.

Soon after we came home I had the first real sorrow in my family.  Bessie, a dear little girl then as ever, took typhoid fever, was very ill and her life despaired of, but she was getting slowly better, when Johnny, a little boy nearly two years old, took it.  It went at once to his head, and in spite of the remedies that did Bessie good, he died, and I heard Jesus, as it were saying to me “Suffer the little children to come unto me,” and I was enabled to give him up to God who gave him to me.  Bessie requiring so much attention, took my mind from brooding too much over my sorrow.  He was a very clever little fellow for his age and a great favourite of Betsy's.  I don't remember anything very special to record after that.

George throve well with his nurse, Willie was born in September next year [1852], and Andrew the year after that.  Then I fell into rather poor health and had a little boy who only lived eight hours.  I went to Edinburgh to pay a visit to Ham Maxwell's mother, who had lodgings there while her husband was in India.  She took me to Dr Cumming, and I got much better after a course of treatment from him.  Between 3 and 4 years after Andrew, came Minnie [Mary] – then 4½ years after her, Mia [Margaret] my youngest was born.  Both had wet nurses, not good women but good nurses.  The next great event in the family was Annie's marriage to Alick Maclagan [Alexander Stormonth Mclagan Wedderburn], then partner of Dr Steele in Forfar – a very happy union.

Soon after this my dear Bessie showed signs of consumption.  We look her away from school in Edinburgh, greatly to her own regret.  I first took her to Bridge of Allan, but as she was no better, her father, who was devotedly attached to her, hearing of Mentone, determined to send her and me there for the winter.  It was great self-denial on his part, because Rachel my second daughter was young to keep house in my absence, but he would have done anything to give dear Bessie a chance of recovery.  This was quite a new experience for me, and at first I thought I could not go away without him.  But he said “I know you well, when you are away you will get on all right,” and so it proved, for I had an unseen Friend to whom I went for everything, strength, comfort, and guidance, even in small matters.  In London, I was joined by Miss Collier, and later on by my sister Mary, who was a great help to me.

We first went to Cannes, but it happened to be very cold weather and some friends to whom I had an introduction, strongly advised me to go to Mentone, being milder.  On our way we spent a day or two at Nice, and as there was no railway beyond, we hired a carriage with bells on the horses' heads and set off in grand style for Mentone.  We drove along the Corniche Road, which was most lovely; we all enjoyed it.  There were not so many English people travelling then as now, and at an inn where we stopped to change horses, a girl seeing us rushed into the house, calling “Les Anglais!  Les Anglais!”  Arrived at Mentone we first went to an Hotel, and then to the Pension D'Italie, not far from the bridge, which divides France from Italy.  There we spent the winter and were most comfortable – never more than twenty boarders, and never more than one gentleman at a time.  I remember that Miss Frere, sister of the late Sir Bartle Frere, wrote out an advertisement “Wanted, a gentleman”, adding all that would be required of him, but never more than one appeared at a time, though we had several changes.  We were most intimate with the Rev J Mason and his wife.  Mr Mason was vicar of a Parish in Yorkshire, and having had an abscess in his lung, had to come to Mentone to recuperate.  He took a fancy to Bessie, and would have liked to have made her a good churchwoman.  He was a good man, but I should have liked to have seen him a little broader in his views.

After being several months in Mentone, scarlet fever broke out in the house, and Dr Bennett advised us to go to Cannes till May, when it would be safe to return to Scotland.  Miss Campbell, an Edinburgh lady, went with us to a very good pension, kept by a Miss Stafford.  The house was near the sea, and I used to bathe in the morning, sometimes with Miss Campbell's maid.  We had a lovely view of the Estrelle Mountains, and we would have enjoyed the place had it suited Bessie, but the air was too exciting for her, and after an attack of haemorrhage, or rather two, the doctor advised me to take her North at all risks.  We reached Paris in safety, and spent some weeks in Madame Freeman's pension.  There my husband joined us, and took us home in the beginning of June.  How glad I was to get back to Park Place, and see all my dear children again!

We went to Crieff that summer, and it was there arranged that we should go to the Isle of Wight for the winter.  I took Betsy and Mia with me, and we took rooms on the road leading to Bonchurch.  Dear Bessie did not improve and we did not like the climate nearly so well as Mentone.  But then it was much nearer home, and we had a visit from several of the family, their father, Rachel, Jamie, and I think George.  We had several nice friends, and a very good Congregational Minister Mr Davies.  Mr Mawley and his sister were in the same house.  Mr Mawley took a great fancy to Mia, and corresponded with her for a long time afterwards.  Dr Bruce and the Misses Abercrombie were there too, and I could have been very happy there, had it not been for my anxiety of mind, first about Bessie, and then about Jamie.  Jamie had gone to the Riviera, and when there, had an attack of haemorrhage.  Instead of going home he joined us in the Isle of Wight.  The very first night his cough went like a dagger to my heart.  I thought it impossible that two of my dear children should be in consumption.  The doctor who examined him confirmed my fears.  This text comforted me: “He will withhold no good thing from them that love Him” [Psalm 84 v 11] – and “Yea what is good the Lord will give” [Psalm 85 v 12].  

We spent the summer in Crieff, and when we went home the question was, what was to be done with the two dear invalids.  At first I thought I would take them both to Mentone, but Bessie said to her sister Rachel, that she was not able for the long journey.  So it was settled that we should remain at home, and that Rachel should go abroad with Jamie.  I have never ceased to thank my loving Father, for so ordering my way that I should be at home that winter, for my dear husband died on the 9th of November 1869, and I was so thankful, and he too, that we had these last few months together.  It was on one of these days that he said that his whole married life had been like a honeymoon, and it has been sweet to think of ever since.  I am sure I must often have tried him, but he always attributed it to my nerves, and said it would pass off.  Love indeed covers a multitude of sins.  He died of typhus fever, a disease that had been very fatal in the family, two brothers having died of it, James and Duncan.  He died on the ninth day of the fever, but was only in bed four or five days, for being term time he was very busy, and insisted on going to the office as long as he was able.  I went to the office for him, and it went to my heart to see him sitting there with a glass of water beside him.  That day we walked home, next day I also went for him, but we took a cab home and that evening he said to our dear Bessie, “I am not able to carry you upstairs tonight.”  He had a very restless night, and next morning said “I am not able to rise.”  I sent for James Duncan, and when he saw him he said, “I must send for Dr Cocks”, but alas – all was unavailing.  When standing by his bed – I heard as it were God's voice saying to me “Let their widows trust in me” [Jeremiah 49 v 11], and how graciously he has fulfilled his promise, for He has indeed been a Husband to me and supplied all my wants.  I have never wished for riches, but I have always had enough and to spare.  At first I was so stunned I felt the third [chapter] of Lamentations was what suited me best – my prayers would not pass through [v 44] – but one day I came upon the verse “The Lord is my portion” [v 24], and then I could say “Return unto thy rest, O my soul” [Psalm 116 v 7].  I felt peace was God's gift and it has been mine ever since.  Jamie and Rachel were at Mentone, but they were advised not to come home, for Jamie was not able for office work.  

My next great sorrow was the death of my dear Bessie.  She did all she could to help me and cheer me after her father's death, and used to hear Andy his lessons in the evenings.  In the beginning of winter we had given her our bedroom, and had gone downstairs ourselves so that she might be on the same floor as the drawing room, but as long as she was able she liked to come down and sit with us at dinner, and her father carried her up to bed.  He was devoted to her, and called her his picciola flower, of which he had a plant which he watered daily himself.  She insisted on me giving her mourning like the others, hat and jacket, and we used to open the windows for her to take a walk in the dining-room with them on.  One afternoon in January, Jessie Comrie took up her dinner as usual, and Bessie sent word by her that she wished to see me.  When I went up I found she had brought up a great deal of blood.  I got her to bed and sent for the doctor.  He told me he feared the end had come, that her pulse was sinking.  Bessie died Jan 21st, 1870.

Added Reminiscences by Mary Ogilvie
  
Our mother liked to speak of her early days and most of the incidents in the foregoing narrative are familiar to me, but there are others, unrecorded there, which the family may like to keep in remembrance.  I shall endeavour, therefore, so far as my memory serves me, to put  down in a rambling fashion the things I have often heard from her own lips, interspersed perhaps with a few recollections of my own.

When our Grandfather Dr Maxwell returned from Jamaica at the age of 52 with a small fortune – for such £800 a year was accounted in those days – he wanted a wife, and applied to his cousins Miss Annie and Miss Lily Maxwell to find him one.  They advised him “to try one of the Miss Stormonths”.  These were the daughters of the late Minister of Airlie, their mother being Isabella Wedderburn of Pearsie.  She died when they were children, and after their father's death they came to live in the Nethergate, Dundee.  Dr Maxwell, as was right and proper, addressed himself in the first instance to the eldest sister Isabella, known to a young generation as 'Aunt Stormonth'.  She refused him point blank, and when he, like a more famous wooer, thinking her 'daft to refuse' such an eligible offer, asked her if she were pre-engaged she replied she was neither “pre-engaged nor pre-possessed”.  To soften the disappointment she suggested he should “try Betsy”.  Betsy, it appeared, was 'willing' and so they were married and became the father and mother of a large family, of whom as related in the above narrative our mother was the third daughter.  She was named after her paternal grandmother Ann Ogilvy of Coul, hence our connection with the Wedderburn Ogilvys of Ruthven.  I have in my possession a letter to this lady from her son James, then a young officer in the Marines.  Here for a moment we touch history.  It is dated “at sea June 2nd, 1794  (the day after 'the Battle of the Morning of the first of June') from his Majesty's ship 'Leviathan' and is as follows:

Thank God Almighty my dear Mother I am in the greatest health and spirits, after the most glorious Action that was ever fought.  We were closely engaged with the enemy, three different days, and during every one my conduct gave Lord Hugh (Howe) so much satisfaction that he has told me I shall ever find in him a very warm and sincere friend.  I have not time to give you any particulars, only that we engaged the America of 74 guns (one of our prizes) 3 hours and a half and totally disabled her; and on the 28th ultimo, the day on which we caught sight of them, a ship of 120 guns for above an hour and a half.  I have not time to say any more, Lord Howe is in such a hurry to despatch a ship with the agreeable accounts to England.  On receipt of this tell Miss Ann to be so good as to write to me at Portsmouth, where I hope we shall be soon after the arrival of despatches with 6 sail of the Enemy's line of Battle Ships.  What number of ships are gone to the bottom we know not as yet on the Leviathan, but think two.  Thank God this is the second glorious action I have been in and had the good fortune to escape.  I beg my kind compliments to all friends and acquaintances and believe me ever my dear mother ever to remain,

Your affectionate son, James Maxwell.

PS This is written in the greatest haste.

What we know of him afterwards is not very heroic.  As Captain James Maxwell, he and his dog Dash were well known in Dundee.  He wore a blue coat with brass buttons and gave his nieces a shilling when he remembered to ask them if they had brushed their teeth.

But to return to our grand-parents.  I have often heard Mother say that there was too great a disparity of years between them.  Her father was proud of his handsome wife, but they were in no sense companions.  He had a 'fine temper' and she I gather had a difficult one.  I have heard how the children admired their Mother, dressed for a party with a turban on her head, when they saw her step from the hall into a Sedan chair.  There was only one cab in the town in those days and it was called a 'Noddy'.  Those were also the days when a watchman patrolled the town during the hours of darkness, when in the silence of the sleeping streets might be heard the cry “Twelve o' clock and a starry night” - or “Half past five a fine frosty morning”.

To return for a moment to Aunt Stormonth.  She was the esprit fort of the family and could hold her own with any theologian.  Mother often regretted that there was no portrait of her.  She had a polished forehead, an ear trumpet, and a crooked little finger, which I am supposed to have inherited.  Perhaps on that account when I grew up, I was allowed to wear a ring of hers, consisting of one large turquoise, set in a very slender frame of gold.  This ring had a history.  I have already said that the Stormonths' mother died when they were children.  They were brought up by governesses, and one of these, a Miss Campbell, daughter of an innkeeper in Perth, had a brother who often came to see her and brought novels for her young charges.  He became the lover of one of them – Elizabeth, our grandmother – but he got a post in the Persian Embassy, and she never saw him again.  Before his death he sent home this ring – not to her, but to her eldest sister Belle, Aunt Stormonth.  I wore it for some time, but in 1886 when crossing the Channel the stone fell out and disappeared.  This was the first of these “fallings from me, vanishings” [quotation from Wordsworth: “Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood] so frequent now.  How often since then has the truth of those words come home to me: “Ye brought nothing into this world, and it is certain ye can carry nothing out” [1 Timothy 6 v 7].

The childish visit to the Highlands made a great impression on my mother.  Long, long after in the year 1893, when she and I and my cousin Margaret Ogilvie were staying at Inverness, we called on the minister of Dores, and were kindly received by him, but the Manse itself was entirely rebuilt.  However she recognised the glen behind the house, and the little burn where she used to wash her doll's clothes.  It is interesting to notice that the things which struck her as a child – the guard with his red coat and horn – impressed her also in middle life, when she and her invalid daughter Bessie drove “in style along the Corniche Road – bells at the horses' heads”.  She had a feeling for the brave shows of life, and indeed for everything beautiful, if not of too subtle a nature.  It was a great treat to her when in May 1898 at the laying of the foundation stone of the Victoria and Albert Museum we sat opposite the Royalties and saw the splendid uniforms of the court; and it was only a few months ago that she wanted to drive down to Bristol to hear the Proclamation of King George V.

In her narrative she does not mention another visit to the Highlands, when she was about 18 years of age.  Another of the Stormonths had married the Rev David Carment, minister of Rosskeen, on the Cromarty Firth looking across to the twin hills called the Soutars of Cromarty.  In the summer above referred to when we were at Inverness, she and I made a pilgrimage there, and looking at the comfortable Manse and the ample glebe where the reapers were already cutting down the golden corn, one realised as never before the sacrifices involved in the Disruption.  For Mr Carment and his family were of those who went out into the wilderness.  My mother and I never quite agreed on that subject.  I could not see how the old church could be so dead when nearly 500 living souls came out of it.  And what was a “ten years conflict”?  It would have been worth a twenty years conflict if the church could have been saved from such a disaster.  A wound was then inflicted which has taken more than 60 years to heal.  It is idle to quarrel with history.  Like Margaret Fuller “I accept the Universe”, but a sigh of regret may be pardoned.  At any rate if it was a mistake it was a noble one, and the world cannot do without those sublime acts of sacrifice.

Mr Carment belonged to a strict school and always shaved on Saturday night to avoid unnecessary Sunday labour.  It was long remembered in the family that when Dr Stormonth, his wife's brother, and Dr Maxwell her brother-in-law came to visit at the Manse, and he prayed at “worship” for “the seemingly decent and the outwardly respectable”, he was supposed to be referring to his worthy relatives.  It was there that Mother was present for the first time at an open air Communion Service, and she never forgot it.  Nor did she forget the “Men”, who on the Friday of the Preachings Week, sat with red cotton handkerchiefs on their heads, propounding questions to the Minister.  This visit must have taken place after she left school.  She enjoyed her Edinburgh school-days thoroughly and was always a little aggrieved because they came to an abrupt end, owing to the marriage of Miss Crymble with the father of one of her pupils.  In her record, she tells of the beginning of her friendship with Miss Angelica Fraser – a friendship which lasted 75 years, and which Miss Fraser extended to each child as it appeared on the scene.

I have a series of letters from Miss Fraser dating from 1839, which Mother had not the heart to destroy.  In these early days they are long letters – not of many sheets for postage was 
8½ d, but each page is crossed forming a neat chequer work.  Later, when the tailors took up so much of her time and strength, they became shorter, and of recent contained little but an endearment, a few texts, and a benediction.  I have been looking through these letters and find them a little unrelieved in tone.  A bit of gossip now and again would not come amiss.  Occasionally one meets with some reward – this for instance: “But there is one thing that makes me very anxious just now, and that is Johnny Turing (a nephew about the same age as herself) is going to Cambridge with the prospect of being Minister of the Church of England – now you know he is not a serious boy and it is so sad to think of him going into the midst of that soul-destroying heresy”.  I do not know how far Miss Fraser has travelled since then, but I am sure Mother would have laughed heartily at this expression of youthful bigotry had she come across it in later life.  I think however that my childhood breathed the same atmosphere, for I can remember feeling some anxiety about the mother of a school friend whom I admired, and saying: “Surely Mrs Luis cannot be a very bad Episcopalian, as she was brought up a Presbyterian!”

Mother has told so charmingly the story of her courtship and marriage that I have little to add to it.  It may seem strange that in a small place as Dundee then was, that the two families should not have known each other, but as I understand, Dundee had even then its 'upper crust', and to that the Maxwells belonged.  My father was the third in succession of a firm of solicitors, still playfully called in the family “Jy and Jy Ogilvie”, founded in 1773 by a John Ogilvie, known in these days when honest lawyers were rare, as “the honest writer”.  He was succeeded by his son James, our grandfather, and there has never been wanting a 'Jy' (or a G) to carry on the traditions.  James Ogilvie married Rachel Jameson, daughter of the Town Clerk of Dysart, through whom we are connected with the families of that name.  Her brother was that Captain of the East Indianman, who brought home the wonderful collection of Oriental China, which is now in our possession.  I have been told that my grandparents were once three weeks coming from London in a sailing vessel, and that the marriage of a sister of my grandfather's with a man in Fife, was definitely given up, because the bridegroom was twice prevented from crossing the Firth by stress of weather.

The little house in Hawkhill Place where our parents spent their early married life, is still standing, but 4 Park Place, to which they migrated in 1851, along with the others in the row, including number one where old Mr and Mrs Ogilvie lived, is soon to be pulled down to make way for a new Government Training College.  Despite being such near neighbours, our Mother was on the best of terms with her Mother-in-Law, though the latter would have liked her to entertain more.  One attempt at entertaining was rather disastrous.  It was the first time that her father and mother-in-law had been invited to dine in the new house.  A beef-steak pie was set before them, but the poor hostess raked the dish in vain to find anything but bones.  It was discovered afterwards that the cook had sold the meat the day before!  So much for those who praise too exclusively “the constant service of the antique world”.

Mrs Ogilvie was a woman who commanded the affection of all her children, and she had the misfortune to see many of her fine sons laid in the grave before her.  One of her greatest sorrows was the death of her daughter Rachel in India.  (Alas!  How many go to that country never to return).  She had had an unhappy love affair, and when another opportunity of marriage presented itself, in the person of Major Duncan, a medical officer in the East India Company's service, her parents put no obstacle in her way, though when they said goodbye to her they had little hope of seeing her again.  It turned out as they feared, for she died in India and her husband soon after her, and the children came home with their Ayah to fill an empty corner in the Mother's heart.  Our Mother does not mention the home-coming of the little Duncans, to whom she was always much attached, nor that of Elizabeth and Jack Ferguson who were sent from Australia to be educated along with her children.

Mother followed the fortunes of her sister Isabella and her husband with the keenest interest.  She could not have described more graphically, had she been there herself, their disappointment when the streets and squares marked on the map turned out to be still unreclaimed Bush – then there was the picture she loved to draw of Aunt Isabella at the wash-tub, while her piano stood by in its packing-case unopened; and the thrilling story of the Bush fire, which threatened to destroy their homestead, and which was only saved by the providential appearance of Captain Ommaney and a party of surveyors.  He showed them how to burn the scrub round the house, so that when the monster drew near it had nothing to feed on.  When her son Andrew went to Australia, she followed his career with the same loving interest, sympathising with his hardships and rejoicing in his success.  But it was Betsy who said on hearing his privations “What a sair trachle that puir bairn's had!”  The dramatic possibilities of the colonies also appealed to her, and she could never get over the close connection between the explorer and Premier of Western Australia [Sir John Forrest] and the Buckle-maker wynd of Dundee.

It is time now to say something more about our old nurse Betsy.  She was much beloved by us all and though she carried a pair of tawse in her pocket she knew how to win the heart of children.  One of my earliest recollections is standing on a chair in the nursery to hook up the black silk dress she always wore on Sundays.  Though it was a treat to be allowed to have 'housey play' in the dining-room and to personate 'Mrs Padentosh' and 'Mrs Forkey-taily' behind the damask curtains, we were always well content in the nursery, on ordinary days with toys from the Rubbish Drawer, and on great occasions with the contents of the Locked Drawer.  I think I could enumerate at the present moment every article that drawer contained.  Then there were sundry recurring events in nursery life almost too trivial for mention, but all touched with “the tender grace of a day that  is fled.”  [“But the tender grace of a day that is dead will never come back to me...” from the famous poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson.]        For instance there was the binding of the top of the fender when the fires were hot in winter, and the unbinding in summer – perhaps after the April Preachings.  Then there was the opening of the mantle-piece pincushion to find the lost needles, and last though not least the great making of grease – never dignified by the title of pomade.

I was sometimes allowed to go with Betsy to look for summer quarters, and it was an unfailing amusement to hear her parry the remarks of our too inquisitive fellow-travellers.  To use a vulgarism - “No one got any change out of her”.  Once when several of us were going to the Highlands under her wing, a man in the compartment observed tentatively “Ye'll be the Mither o' them a'”, and all he got was “I micht be their grand-mither”.  Little Johnny who lived only 20 months was a great favourite both with Mother and Betsy.  Betsy wore a brooch with his fair hair, and I know Mother always thought of him in reading the story of the boy who said “My head, my head” and sat on his Mother's knees till noon when he died.

Betsy was in our family nearly forty years, not thirty as Mother says in her narrative.  She came with us to Clifton, but the last year of her life she spent with her sister-in-law and her family in Dundee.  We saw her there once more in the autumn of 1881, and I never pass the window of the house in Viewforth Place where she lived, without thinking of the last time we saw her dear old face looking after us down the street.  She became very ill at the end of that year.  Willie was at Broughty Ferry and was going to see her on New Year's Day, but the day before, Sunday, feeling herself dying, she said “Will a' no see Willie Ogilvie?” and he was sent for that afternoon.  He sat with her for some time, which pleased her very much, and next day she died, January 1st 1882, nearly thirty years ago.  Her niece wrote at the time “she was always thinking and talking of you all, especially of Miss Mia”.  Dear Betsy!  She will never be forgotten by the children she loved so well.

It was soon after this that Willie sailed for Valparaiso.  He had severed his connection with St Phillip's Iron Works, and was beginning life again as a humble draughtsman in an engineering firm in Leith.  I remember well that evening of early spring when his boxes were all ready strapped in the hall, and we were awaiting the cab which was to take him and his belongings to Bristol Station.  As we lingered rather depressed over supper, something happened which made him leave his boxes in the hall, and start for Leith with only a handbag.  This was a letter from James Balfour offering him a good position in the firm of Balfour Lyon & Co, Valparaiso, with the prospect of becoming partner in a few year's time.  Thus in a moment did the tide of fortune turn in his favour.

But here we have been carried beyond the limits of these reminiscences.  In the fifties and sixties Mother spent a good deal of time visiting the poor in the lanes and wynds of the Perth Road, trying to benefit them spiritually and temporally.  One woman said she was “guid at giein” and a truer word was never spoken, as her children and grandchildren can testify.  Jane MacGregor is fond of quoting the remark of an aged member of St Peter's, as illustrating the impression her life had made, when her Mother, the wife of the Rev Duncan MacGregor, first came to Dundee: “I've been speirin about ye, and a've been watchin' ye, and when I saw ye was makkin' a camarad of Mistress Ogilvie I kent ye was dae”.

Mother's narrative stops abruptly when it reaches Bessie's death.  Had I known she was writing these memories I would have begged her to pass over that terrible year and go on to happier times – that year which was also to witness the death of her eldest son Jamie whom his father had hoped would carry on his name in Dundee.  She might have told of our travels on the continent and of that greater journey to Peru which some thought so adventurous at her age.  It too was shadowed by death, but Mother had wonderful powers of enjoyment and though feeling sorrow intensely she had always within her a well-spring of joy.  She might have told of our settling in Clifton, of the little Balfours and the happiness they brought us, of a new generation ever knocking at the door and always welcome, of the promise early years, of crushing disappointments.  If all family annals were written would they not tell the same tale?  “This life has its hopes for this life, hopes that promise joy; life done – Out of all the hopes, how many had complete fulfilment?  None” [from a poem by Robert Browning – La Saiziaz: The Two Poets of Croisic, written November 1877].

But in writing of Mother one ought not to end on a despondent note.  Even in the last days of her life when owing to bodily weakness her faith and hope were less triumphant, the substance of her prayer was always - “O Lord, in Thee have I trusted, let me never be confounded” (from Te Deum Laudamus and Psalm 31 v 1].

It is two months today since she died.  The winter sun lights up the place where she breathed her last, and in the distance the street organs, again on their Saturday rounds, are grinding out their relentless music – a sound I never hear without thinking of that hour when I watched her going far away from me.  “It was my mother and not my mother!  The last pale rim or sickle of the moon which had once been full, now sinking in the dark seas” [Thomas Carlyle, Reminiscences].

But as after death all trace of pain and struggle passes away and the old sweet serenity returns to the countenance, so to the memory comes back the thought of what she was, not in her hour of distress and weakness, but as the bringer of sunshine and blessing to our home.

	“It is an old belief that on some solemn shore
	  Beyond the sphere of grief, dear friends will meet once more.

	  Beyond the sphere of time, and sin and Fate's control
	  Serene in changeless prime of body and of soul.

	  That creed I fain would keep, that hope I'll not forgo,
	  Eternal be the sleep, if not to waken so.”

[Words by John Gibson Lockhart (1794 to 1854), set to music by Sir Charles Hubert Parry (1848 to 1918)]

M.I.O.

November 1910.