grave post - Heather

I find it interesting that some people decide to write an obituary on their headstone. 

It certainly makes it easier to look up further information. 

Well, sometimes. This week, for Taphophile Tragics, we are still in St Mark's Cemetery in NOTL.

The March 28th, 1946 edition of The Acton Free Press notes that many friends here regretted to learn of the death last week of Mrs George Heather at the KW [Kitchener-Waterloo] hospital. She was the organizer of the Duke of Devonshire IODE and in the years since had been a welcome visitor and speaker at the meetings of the Chapter on several occasions.

Mrs Heather had worked with several war charities in England and Canada in both the first and second world wars and she organized the Red Cross in Kitchener during the Boer War and became the first secretary.

According to the London Gazette which provided various rankings of officers from the War Office, it was reported that George Abraham Heather, Gent. was to be Second Lieutenant as of August 1895 and Lieutenant in 1897. He is listed as a Captain while on board The Victorian in March of 1902 when he set sail for Southampton. The ship stopped off at St Lucia, St Helena and Gibralter before reaching Southampton  where it was due to depart again by mid May with some of the 10,000 more military personnel. His name also shows up in a google search as being on the shipping list for 1901, but it was another very long list and I gave up searching for his name. There was another Heather, a Lieut, listed who may have been a brother as it seems to be not such an usual name. By March of 1909, George A Heather, of the Duke of Connaught's Own Sligo Royal Field Artillery was granted the honorary rank of Major.

He was born in Ireland, in what was the largest parish in the county.

But it is his wife's many activities and accomplishments that adorn this headstone.

During WWI she did hospital work in England and Scotland. At her wedding to Maj George Heather back in 1918 in Seven Oaks Kent, 200 wounded Canadian veterans formed an arch of crutches as the couple left the church.

In recognition of her work she was made a Fellow of the Royal Empire Society and was made a vice president of the League of Mercy by Princess Mary.

And at the Silver Jubilee of King George V, she and her husband were among the guests invited to go to St Paul's Cathedral and lunch at St James Palace.

~Acton Free Press

With all of her commitments, it makes sense that she would not be willing to emigrate to the UK and that her husband might follow her to Canada. How his career fared after the end of WWI is unknown but at age 50, and having endured The Great War and The Boer War, he may have been ready for retirement. Both seem to have been very career oriented and married late in life (which explains the absence of children!). But how they ended up choosing Niagara-on-the-Lake as their final resting place is a bit of a mystery that I could not uncover.

(as a guide for everyone, but mostly the Australians........)

the purple bubble shows roughly where Niagara-on-the-Lake is located. As you can see it is very close to the border with the US (Ontario and New York). Acton is located where it says 'Halton Hills'. And Fergus, where Williamina was born, is a bit to the right of where it says 'Woolwich'. Ireland is far, far away off the upper right corner.