The Shaw family headstone is easily missed among the ornate monuments to Dundee’s industrial magnates in the Western Cemetery. So is the tragic story of Jane Shaw and her family. Young Jane died from influenza and broncho-pneumonia at 31 Seafield Road, Dundee, on January 31 1919, aged only four. She was the third of the Shaw children to die within twelve months.
Jane Dickson Clark Shaw (Jr.) was born on March 20, 1914, at 31 Seafield Road, Dundee, to John Shaw, a master joiner, and Jane (nee Clark). She was the couple’s youngest daughter. Three months after her birth, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir apparent to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his wife Sophie were assassinated in Sarajevo, sparking a war in Europe. By August, all the major European powers were at war.
It is possible that her father voluntarily enlisted in the armed forces following the outbreak of war. If not, his occupation would likely have excused him from conscription. Jane’s eldest brother, John (Jr.), either volunteered or was conscripted into the armed forces and served in the Royal Flying Corps, rising to Second Lieutenant. He was killed in a tragic flying accident in Norfolk on February 19 1918, aged eighteen. The following month, Jane lost her brother Archibald to complications from rheumatic fever, aged twelve. While child mortality was more prevalent in the past, I believe it was equally emotionally devastating for affected families. Less than a year after their double bereavement, Jane’s family mourned the loss of another child with her death.
By 1921, Jane’s parents and her surviving siblings, David and Dorothy, had moved from Seafield Road to Monifieth, located east of Dundee. Tragically, they lost David on February 16, 1940, at the age of thirty-eight. John passed away five years later at the age of seventy-one. Jane (Sr.) outlived her husband by just under seventeen years. She was laid to rest alongside her husband and their deceased children.
Source: Ancestry, Scotland’s People
Broken Columns 