Kewmarnic Cottage

I love this photo of my mother as a child back in the late 1930's.  Mum is on the left and her younger sister, my Aunty Eileen, is on the right.  The photo is taken on their small farm at Milltown, near Southbridge. 

I love how they look like wild little ragamuffins!  These were free range children out on the windswept plains.  I think Mum had a mostly happy childhood full of horses, dogs, cows, cats, hens and other critters - rather similar to my own!  

1971 - a devastating time for my family when my elder and only brother Allan Alexander died of a brain tumour when he was 14 years old.  I was 12 years old.  The photo above shows my sister Shirley (on the left) and myself (on the right) standing by his graveside on the day of his funeral.  We are in the Presbyterian section of the Ellesmere Cemetery where we have family graves going back several generations.