MARY McKENZIE (1837- )
Mary was the firstborn in the family and as the eldest daughter was
named for her maternal grandmother, Margaret McKenzie. In the early
summer of 1841 when the census was taken she was four years old and
her brother John was two. Her home was the two-roomed cottage on her
grandfather’s croft and her early playground the immediate
environment of the croft.
Life was hard for anyone growing up in Coigach in the 1840s
but Mary’s parents and grandparents and others before them had
proved they could survive. They had withstood the almost continual
state of poverty that had been the loft of the Northwest highlanders
for generations, and in spite of hardship reaching new levels of
severity in this period, life went on with people displaying a
characteristically stoic attitude.
There was no lack of playmates for Mary as there were 29
other children in Achindrean in 1841, 10 of whom were of an age to
be her friends. Some may even have been her cousins and members of
John and Helen’s extended family. Child ren had to accept the
transitory nature of many friendships as families moved in and out
of the village. Ten years later only two other girls from the 1841
group remained. A century and a half later story books were being
written to help children deal with social issues, but not so when
Mary was a child.
Play was part of life for children even in impoverished
times. Her favourite games were no doubt the universal ones based on
movement and rhythm, ancient chants and singing, and the imitation
of adults’ daily and seasonal tasks. She would have absorbed Gaelic
prayers and poetry that tied in to so many household activities
including food preparation, spinning, weaving, keeping the fire and
the protection of the home at night.
The dwelling, O God, by thee be blest,
And each one who here this night doth rest;
My dear ones, O God, bless thou and keep
In every place where they are asleep;
In the evening that doth fall tonight,
And in every single evening-light;
In the daylight that doth make today,
And in every single daylight day.
There were no brightly-coloured factory produced toys, but common
everyday objects. Corks washed ashore from herring nets were just
the thing. There were old horse-shoes, stones from river or beach.
All were fine for imaginative play for younger children, while those
who were older used them in games of skill – peevers, put-the-shot,
cork-release, football, fingers and catty-doggy.
Peevers was a form of hopscotch, the peever being a flat
stone shunted from square to square while hopping on one foot.
Squares were drawn on the ground in the overall shape of a crucifix.
Put-the-shot required a special stone called a dornag which had to
be weigh about six or seven pounds, and be a round shape washed in
the sea. What thoughts of prowess came to the minds of young lads
holding them at arms length and twirling round to release it?
Both boys and girls played cork-release, a simple bat and ball game
using a cork instead of a ball, or catty-doggy, a similar game which
used a wooden bat to hit a notched four inch piece of wood as far as
possible. And there was also ringers where a horseshoe was tossed
over a stake. Football was just a simple game of kick the cork.
By the time Mary was seven or eight she could play a good game of
peevers and didn’t need a friend to practise. Games were only part
of the growing up process. From the time she was a toddler at her
mother’s side she had started to learn about food preparation,
spinning wool and weaving. It was a matter of survival for the
family that children quickly learnt to perform daily and seasonal
tasks needed for life on a croft. For some this often meant
schooling was part-time. The realities of life, sickness, birth and
death were part of their lives long before adulthood. Mary’s
grandfather John died before she was ten, and then her grandmother
Helen a few yeas later. During this time other siblings were born.
The school in Achindrean was not far from the village, but
there is no record of Mary having ever attended, even although her
brothers Donald and Roderick did so. It is likely she had little if
any formal education and probably Gaelic was her only language.
As she reached teenage years she was expected to share even
more in the daily routine of the household. She had been fetching
water from the well for some time, but now she helped make bannocks
and porridge, nettle soup and kail dishes. She spun fleece and wove
cloth, learnt about herbs and simple remedies for sickness. While
the three boys were at school, she worked at home just as any adult.
When she was old enough she spent summers in the sheiling
watching over the cows, doing the milking and making butter and
cheese. This was a splendid time of the year when poets were moved
to write of the beauty of nature and the harshness of the other
seasons were forgotten for a while. These periods in the summer
milk-house in the comparatively lush hill pasture was probably the
closest experience to a holiday she ever had.
Because of the economic circumstances the time came however
when Mary, like other young women in Coigach, had to leave home and
look for work elsewhere. A well-educated girl might find openings as
a governess or a children’s nurse, but most were, if not glad, at
least relieved to find a position as housemaid or dairymaid, of a
house-servant or farm-servant. There were few such opportunities in
Ullapool and surrounding districts, so most girls from the crofts
went to the towns or cities, perhaps Dingwall, Inverness or further
afield to Glasgow, Aberdeen or Edinburgh. In the 1860s, perhaps in
another parish, Mary found work as a housemaid. By 1869 she had
returned to Achindrean and on 12 November gave birth to a daughter,
Johana.
Mary and Johana remained on the croft until 1873 when Johana
left Achindrean to travel to New Zealand with her grandparents and
several of her aunts and uncles. No explanation about the reasons
for Mary’s decision to stay in Scotland survives in family memory or
correspondence. At least it could be said she had the courage to
part with her child in the hope of Johana’s having a better future.
Twenty years later Johanna married her cousin William, eldest son of
her uncle Roderick. They had a family of ten children and thus Mary
and her borther Roderick came to have a line of descendants in
common.
In March 1890 when Ann, Mary’s mother, died, Mary herself was
still living, presumably in Scotland. There her trail ends. That she
was remembered with fondness and respect is attested to by the
naming of several second-generation babies in other branches of the
family; Catherine and Isabella, along with Johana herself, each
naming a daughter for her.