Couple celebrate 65 years of marriage
Balfron pair exchanged vows in December 1854
A Balfron couple were making the news in January 1920 when they celebrated 65 years of marriage.
The ruby wedding anniversary pair were Mr and Mrs John McGregor, Honey Holm, Ballikinrain, who exchanged vows on December 29, 1854, at the parish church of Monzievaird, near Crieff.
Mr McGregor (91) was from Comrie, and his wife (84) was a native of Monzievaird.
They had a family of nine of whom only a son and two daughters were alive at the time of the anniversary. In addition, the couple had 25 grandchildren and 11 greatgrandchildren.
A ploughman in his younger days, Mr McGegor recalled cutting a field of corn on Quoigs Farm, Greenloaning, to allow surveyors to take levels in preparation for the laying of the Perth-Stirling railway line. It opened in 1847.
Moving to Ballikinrain 35 years earlier, Mr McGregor took up employment as an estate worker on land owned by Sir Archibald Orr Ewing.
The Observer noted that the couple `still enjoyed the best of health’ and were highly respected in the Balfron area.
`Typically Scottish in all their traits, they are a credit to the race from which they sprung and worthy representatives of the peasantry that was the country’s pride in the past,’ added the paper.
All the family had gathered at Honey Holm for a celebration in honour of the old couple. Another couple celebrating a milestone anniversary at that time was Mr and Mrs Duncan Fergusson, Tighbhaid, Brig O’ Turk, who were guests of honour at an event at the village school to mark their 50 years of marriage.
A total of 130 guests attended the celebration on Hogmanay 1919, among them Mrs Fergusson’s bridesmaid, a Mrs Cooper from Alloa, and the `groomsman’ at the couple’s wedding, Mr Hugh Macgregor.
Rev W Wilson, who addressed the assembled, said Mr Fergusson worked at a hotel having previously been employed as a shepherd in Glenfinglas.
Mr Fergusson was born and brought up in Balquhidder where his forebears had lived for generations. Rev Wilson added: “Mr Fergusson has just been telling me … of one of his grandfathers, a Comrie man. He was remarkable for the fact that only on one day of his life did he wear breeks. The kilt was his garb. But on the insistence of his wife, he did one day don the new fangled raiment, and went on his day’s errand. Soon he came home with the breeks slung over his shoulder, which he threw to his wife saying `Here, tak them and wear them yersel.’”
Mr Fergusson’s wife, formerly Henrietta Stewart, came from a family which had lived in the Trossachs for many years. A wallet of Treasury notes was presented to the couple to mark their anniversary. A picture of the couple, printed in the Observer, was taken by one of the couple’s daughters, Mrs K McLean, of Bar Harbor, Maine, USA.