Helen (nee Wylie) lies in Old Town Cemetery, very close to the tower of the Church of the Holy Rude. Her grave is among the first you encounter should you enter the cemetery next to the church’s main entrance, and former Cowan Hospital. She shared her resting place with, what I believe to be her maternal grandparents, and her father who predeceased her in 1912. Her mother was laid to rest with her family in 1940.
Helen succumbed in influenza, pneumonia and heart failure on Christmas Eve 1918, at her home in Causewayhead aged thirty-three. Though the war had ended the previous month, Christmas 1918 was a bittersweet occasion. Whilst the fortunate households settled down to enjoy the first ‘peace time’ Christmas in five years, many others mourned the loss of those who had fallen on the front line, or in the case of the Nicholson and Wylie families lost loved ones to Spanish flu, as the deadliest wave of the pandemic reached its peak.
Broken Columns 