John, who was on leave from France, was suddenly taken from us on November 15th 1918. His headstone bears witness to this fact. His death registration confirmed that his pneumonia was a result of ‘acute influenza’. He passed away at his familial home at 20 Forth Avenue, Kirkcaldy, at the tender age of twenty-five. John had served in the armed forces for four years and three months, a personal sacrifice that made him another victim of the cruel irony of the Spanish flu pandemic.
The familial headstone is in the care of the Commonwealth War Grave Commission (CWGC).
John, the second son of William and Hannah (née Gourlay), was born in 1892 or 1893. The Graham family resided at 62 Links Road at the time of John’s birth.
After the outbreak of the war, John joined the Royal Engineers 218th Field Company. Before the war, he worked as a mechanic at the West Bridge Spinning Mills. He also played the cornet in the Trades Band, which was present at his funeral. He was buried with military honours, and his obituary was published in the “Fifeshire Advertiser” on Saturday, November 23rd. Tragically, John was the family’s second loss that autumn; his brother William Jr. died of wounds in September.
Sources: Ancestry, British Newspaper Archive, CWGC, ScotlandsPeople
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