I have a sentimental attachment to Maggie Barrie. Her grave in Crieff’s Ford Road Old Cemetery was one of the first I located. Furthermore, after finding her grave I visited the new cemetery next door. The first grave I encountered belonged to a victim of COVID-19; a fellow pandemic casualty like Maggie, a century apart.
Maggie Barrie (nee Smith-Robb) died on the 18th of February 1919 at 7 Burrell Square from influenza complicated by pneumonia aged forty-two. Her grave is an elegant polished granite plinth adorned with an urn. She rests near the edge of a small slope with attractive views of the River Earn and distant hills.
Margaret was born in Dundee on the 11th of November 1877, eldest child of John Smith-Robb and Jane (nee Ramsay). At the 1881 Census a four-year old Maggie lived with her parents and younger sister Martha at 25 New Lilybank Road. John was employed as a railway engine driver. A decade later the Barrie family had moved to Stirling Street. Maggie now aged fourteen was training to be a dress maker. The family had also grown with the arrival of her sister Bessie and brothers David and John Jr. Tragedy was the strike the family the following year when John, aged only forty, died after sustaining mortal injuries in a horse-drawn carriage accident.
On the fourth of October 1899 Maggie aged twenty-two married dentist Arthur Barrie in Dundee. Two years later the couple resided at 84 Murraygate. Their son Thomas was born on the twenty-fourth of June 1904 at Burrell Square, the couple having moved to Crieff. Arthur established a dental practice from the family home. In 1911 the Barries resided at 7 Burrell Square with their eighteen year old servant. Thomas aged six attending school. By the late Victorian period, Crieff was an affluent and desirable location, due to its growing role as a spa town. I envisage that the Barrie family as having a comfortable life in Crieff. Arthur was a regular international traveler, taking various trips to commonwealth countries. These trips may have been related to his profession. I cannot help but speculate that Maggie and Thomas would have been lonely without him.
Maggie’s death was registered by her brother-in-law Peter Currie. A brief obituary was published in the Strathearn Herald on the 22nd of February, acknowledging her as “beloved wife of Arthur” though strangely Thomas is not mentioned. Following Maggie’s passing Arthur initially remained in Burrell Street operating his dental practice. On the third of November, less than nine months after Maggie’s passing, he married a local girl Grace McNeil of Muthill who was eighteen years his junior. In 1921 the couple still resided in Burrell Square. Thomas aged sixteen had left the family home and resided in staff lodgings on the nearby Millhills estate, where he worked as ploughman.
Arthur survived Maggie by twenty-seven years. He continued to travel. He died on the thirteenth of February 1946 in the former colony of Southern Rhodesia.
Broken Columns 