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The Ellen Payne Odom Genealogy Library Family Tree
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We’re Indians Sure Enough: The Legacy of the Scottish Highlanders in the United States, by Michael Newton, published by Saorsa Media, 320 pp., US $24, UK £15 ISBN: 09713858-0-7 is the first critical examination of the cultural record of the Scottish Highlanders in the United States. This book includes the first extensive collection of Gaelic poetry composed about their experiences in their adopted home, as well as providing first-hand accounts written by Scottish Gaels as they fled oppression, became engaged in the conflicts in North America, and settled in unfamiliar territories.

Their songs, which can be heard on the companion album The Songs of the Scottish Highlanders in the United States, give voice to a people who have previously been known only through impersonal records written in what was, to them, a foreign language. This literature enables us to under stand their lives from their own perspective in a way which dry historical documents cannot and forms a backdrop for their adventures and their interactions with the other peoples of America.

Dr. Douglas F. Kelly, V-P of Scottish Heritage USA commented, "Michael has plowed a largely neglected field of study. I predict that his pioneering work will bear rich fruit and will stimulate other research in an area important to the cultural history of both Scotland and North America."

For more information, contact Saorsa Media, 506 Maple Avenue, Richmond, VA 23226 or e-mail gaelicmichael@hotmail.com.

This is Angus MacHare Colquhoun!

Although he isn’t a "bear", Lois Seamon thought Angus MacHare Colquhoun would be interesting to our readers. Each year Angus stands guard at the Clan Colquhoun tent at Thomas Point, Maine; and he does an excellent job….except for a time a few years ago when the marauding MacGregors (outnumbering the Colquhouns 10 to 1) captured him and left a ransom note. He was discovered later at the offender’s tent. Poor Angus was shamefaced, his pipes were silent, and he was draped in the MacGregor tartan. But the feisty Colquhoun women- Lois, Carl and Liz – met the MacGregors with such force that Anus was piped back to his rightful place at his home tent. The Colquhouns! Cnoc Elachan!

Children’s Hospice Association Scotland, 18 Hanover Street, Edinburgh EH2 2EN Scotland, UK, will celebrate its 10th birthday in 2002. In that same year, they plan to have completed their second children’s hospice with the help of generous supporters, including Scots in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. Financial help will be appreciated.

At this time they are still searching for a suitable site. CHAS is optimistic that a site will be found that is in the west of Scotland; peaceful and with a pleasant outlook; private and sheltered within an accessible location; near rail and bus routes and motorways; 10-15 miles from a large town; within flat walking distance of good local facilities such as cafes and shops; within 30 minutes' drive of a hospital; and approximately 5 acres.

Aftermath of WW2 in Aberdeen, By Eric Duncan

Being born in 1941 I was almost 5 when the war ended and my memories are not too clear. But some memories do filter through, along with stories I heard from my parents and other adults.

I was born in Torry, Aberdeen, Scotland. Torry is a part of Aberdeen, which grew up right on the Coast of the North Sea, at the mouth of the river Dee and Aberdeen harbour. It was a fishing community until the oil boom of the late 70s. There was the modern Torry and what was called "OLD TORRY". The latter had been there for many, many years, how many I really don’t know, and was a fishing village in the days of wooden ships and iron men.

As in fishing villages all over Scotland, family surnames follow generations. Sons are expected to follow their father’s footsteps and go to sea, or to follow in their father’s trade. They very often married in the community to daughters of other fishing families.

As I remember it, Old Torry was at the end of Sinclair Road right on the water. The houses were built next to each other in a row on both sides of the street, with other small houses scattered behind them. Completing the picture, most of them were white painted, while the others were left showing the brick, with slate roofs and a chimney on top,. The doors and windows were small compared to today’s standards. (I wonder why that is? They say that people were smaller in the past, castle doors were small, and suits of armor were small, yet Sir William Wallace was over 6 feet. It may be the tradition of small doors was for easier defense and the knights were small people. Who knows, that’s another story.)

At the end of the street were the docks. The trawlers would tie up there, and in the days of the old wooden drifters and small fishing boats, it is said that they would stretch out their nets to dry and repair them along the quayside. I can imagine the smell of the tar as the fishermen worked on them in the warm summer sun. On the other end of the street was a small corner shop, which supplied the neighborhood with such things as candles, soap, grocers and, of course, "sweeties" for the "wee" "loons" and "quines". "Loons" and "Quines" being Aberdeen slang for boys and girls, and "sweeties" being candy. I say slang but it probably had its roots in Celtic or Doric or some other tongue.

Incidentally, the shop was converted into a small two-room flat. The living room was the shop front and the small room at the back was their storage space. The back room would hold a very small double bed and had a black cast iron sink with a swan neck tap (faucet). A small gas stove was stuck in a corner for cooking. The living room had the cast iron fireplace that was used to warm the shop and room to barely hold a couch, chair and TV. The reason I know this is that this was my first home when I got married. The address was 125 Sinclair Road, Torry.

I made mention of the fact that changes were made in the 70s. You see the oil boom had started in the North Sea and they needed more space for storage, warehouses, etc. So they bulldozed down that area of "Old Torry". I guess we have to accept change for progress. But if you think about it, we people get rid of good things and replace them with capabilities of producing oil to burn that pollutes the air and helps to destroy humanity and our ecosystem. So we destroy one way of life so that we can destroy a bigger way of life. I personally can’t see the logic in this except for the ruin of mankind because of money and greed. This is my personal opinion. I get carried away at times about things like this, so back to my story.

In a small infant school building down on Abbey Road, I remember crying as my mother left me at age 5. My first day at school was a traumatic experience.

My first visual in my mind’s eye was of being held up to our window at 151 Victoria Road and seeing searchlights and aeroplanes shooting at each other above the shipyard. My father, who was the one holding me, verified this later. Aberdeen was attacked many times during the war. Not much was publicized because of security reasons. The shipyards I talked about were Hall Russell and Co., in Torry; but alas they are gone now also. My parents told me of an attack by one enemy bomber on July 12, 1941, the year I was born. The shipyard workers were repairing and building naval vessels. The workers were eating lunch outside when the attack came which killed many of them.

My mother told me about the aeroplane that bombed the shipyard also killing four more men standing in the doorway of the Neptune Bar, which was across the street from the yard. It headed towards Rosemount where Spitfires engaged in gunfire with the enemy, mortally damaging it. It came low over my grandmother’s house at Ruthrieston; and that is when my mother said she could see the pilot trying to stand up in the cockpit to bailout through the flames. Of course, he never made it. He crash-landed on Anderson Drive running into a partially finished ice rink.

Another incident told by my father was when the air raid siren went off and he grabbed me in his arms and rushed my mother and I towards the air raid shelter in the back yard. Each tenement building had a shelter in the bottom of their yard. It was a concrete structure like a box big enough to hold all the residents. It had three rooms with a solid wood door to each. The doors were protected by a concrete wall attached to the roof. You had to enter from the side to get to the doorway. My father running down the yard past the coal cellars all in a row (cellars were used to store coal for the fire) a bomb exploded some distance down the street. The blast blew open a cellar door hitting my father on the back as he ran past. Luckily he was not injured, but it fare gave him a "fleg" (scare). We made it to the shelter ok. We would stay there in the shelter until the siren would sound the all clear. Sometimes this took a few hours, sometimes it was just a few minutes.

I moved from infant school to Victoria Road school, which was also damaged from the war. The top story had been burned out by incendiary bombs in July 1941. This type of bomb did not explode but burned and could not be extinguished. Luckily it was after school hours and nobody was hurt.

We sometimes walked or took the bus when we would go to town. I remember that across the street from the fish market, stood half of a building. It was a bank that had been bombed in 1942. A nurse and two members of the rescue squad were killed, searching the debris for victims. They were trapped by falling masonry.

There are many incidents I could relate to you. Maybe we will do more at a later date if you are interested; but let me give you just one more. They are all sad but this one struck me hard. A raid in February 1942 hit a bar call McBride’s on Loch Street. It was a direct hit. The revelers inside were having a good time trying to forget the awful times they were going through and the death and carnage that was around them. At lunch time in daylight they raised their faces to the ceiling and listened to the whistle of a single bomb; and that was that 17 people ever heard again. It was customary for bombers to unload all their bombs so they flew home light and this may have been the case here.

Here again is a case of man’s inhumanity to man.

I don’t feel that I have been traumatized in any way by this. Having good Scot’s blood in me had made me a caring and helpful person to my fellow man, after all the Scots have endured many hardships and trials in their long history.

If you would like to e-mail me: bclipperhip@cs.com. Yours aye, Eric.


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