Tributes paid to Kitty, Glenfinnan centenarian
Family and friends of the late Catherine ‘Kitty’ Macdonald gathered in Glenfinnan last Friday to pay their final respects to the village’s oldest resident.
Surrounded by her children, Kitty passed away at Erskine Home, Bishopton, on Thursday October 4, just four months after celebrating her 100th birthday.
For more than 30 years, Kitty was a well-known face in Glenfinnan and that affection was much in evidence last week as a touching service was held in honour of Kitty at St Mary and St Finnan RC Church, Glenfinnan, before Kitty was laid to rest at Dail Naoinh Cemetery at the head of Loch Shiel.
Kitty’s family arranged for a six-metre frieze, made up of photographs and anecdotes telling the story of her life, to be displayed in Glenfinnan House Hotel after the funeral service.
Earlier this year, Kitty’s friends in the village hosted a special birthday celebration in the Glenfinnan House hotel on her behalf, at the same time as the centenarian celebrated with family at Erskine Home, more than 100 miles away.
The following is a tribute to Kitty written by her daughter, Catherine:
‘At the age of 96 our mother, Kitty, acquired a computer and using it as a word processor decided to write her life story. At the time, the family were a bit sceptical and amused by this, but indulged her idea that her life merited an ‘autobiography’... after all she was just an ‘ordinary woman though she did live through some extraordinary times’.
‘How wrong we were. Yes, she was a wife, mother, grandmother and matriarch, much like many women of her generation, but she did have her own story to tell. A story spanning 100 years of history which gave her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren insight into the young woman she once was – the hidden part seldom glimpsed behind the grey hair and grandmotherly demeanour. Her autobiography is proof that every person has their own story to tell if only to their family.
‘After the death in 2000 of her husband Archie, Kitty lived independently in Glenfinnan until the age of 98 when slowly encroaching dementia meant she had to leave. Because of Archie’s war record as a paratrooper, she was able to be cared for at Erskine Home, Bishopton, Glasgow. There the autobiography helped her carers to understand the lively, vivid person she had been and provided a unique personal history to chat to her about and calm her when needed.
‘As her 100th birthday approached, Kitty was no longer able to recall all the events and details of her past life and the family decided to take excerpts from her story and illustrate these with photographs of her, and so a six-metre long frieze was created showing Kitty’s life in her own words throughout the past 100 years.
‘At her 100th birthday party, attended by almost all her relatives, this proved to be a fascinating pictorial record, particularly for her grandchildren and great grandchildren. They learned for the first time about her life in Glasgow as the only girl among six brothers, how she ended up with the name ‘Kitty’, how she knew how to dance the Black Bottom and Charleston, how she lived through the Clydebank Blitz as bombs fell, and how she loved and faced tragic loss before she met and married their grandfather.
‘Kitty died on the October 4, 2018, surrounded by her children. Her funeral was held in Glenfinnan on Friday October 19. Six of her grandsons were her pall bearers with a seventh grandson piping her ‘home’ to be buried beside Archie.’