The following are excerpts from The Life History of George and Katherine Findlay, as Kate told to her grandson NS, who recorded it on tapes and transcribed it a few years before Kate passed away.(1)
Kate’s granddaughter BR says that this life history sounds just the way Grandma Kate used to talk - which makes sense because it was transcribed from her sharing stories orally. I love that, as it helps me to imagine her voice, intonation, and character.
What a blessing to have this record, and hopefully more family members can get a sense of George and Kate as people, as well as their homeland.
Please note: This text is true to the original copy of The Life History of George and Katherine Findlay, though in an effort to improve the readability, I've modified the paragraph formatting, updated the punctuation, or added clarifying points in brackets.
And please note: This is an account according to Kate Findlay - I can't guarantee that all of the facts here are correct, but this is how she remembered them.
In addition to this post, see these other posts on this blog about the Findlays and Aberdeen during WWII:
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We had planned and saved and then had to spend the money. We wanted to come to America and thought in 1938 we would manage and then things got real bad in Europe. And George of course was in the shipyards as a shipwright and he came home one day and said, “It’s very obvious that there is going to be a war and I’m not going to America so put it out of your head because I have to be here to work on ships the same as everybody else. I won’t be taken to the navy because I am doing the work on ships, preparing them and everything.”
He was 36 years old. So we just had to wait another run of years, and we actually waited 10 years to come to this country.
The week before war broke out we had notice that Hugh P. Brown was coming. He was the mission president at the time and would be in Aberdeen, and we had to try and get a nice choir and the Millennial Chorus was a group of missionaries that sang together. They couldn’t get a hall or any place to practice, and we had a piano, and they came and asked if they could practice.
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Ella had a cat during the war years,
which she had named "Winston," because
"he [Churchill] was a BIG deal" she once said,
giving two thumbs up. :) |
The following Sunday they were going to speak. In the morning at 11am it came across the radio saying that war was declared between Britain and Germany, and immediately we had to put black stuff around the windows and black blinds and curtains to cover that. George said the missionaries would be leaving. A knock came to the door and the missionaries said that President Brown would not be able to come up but they would have the meeting anyway and sing. There was packing to do as they had to leave for London Monday morning. President Brown had to get all the shipping to get all the missionaries out. It was a good meeting even though he wasn’t there.
When the meeting closed, the Elders spoke to George and said, "Could we come to your house? You have the biggest room for us, and we would like to have a meeting before we leave and ask the members to be there." All the missionaries and us, and Sister Edwards, Sister Sutherland and Mary Hendry and two others. They had a testimony meeting and everybody bore their testimony, and when it came to me I told them I had tried to start the genealogy but I would if I could but with the war now, not knowing what it will be, but I will try and go everyday and get something and work two hours every day and get something, and I did.
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Ella outside of where her family lived during the war, at 311 Holburn Street, Aberdeen.
Their flat was on the 3rd/top floor of the end unit, the 3rd window from the left.
Photos taken in 2006, 2014. |
The missionaries were very unwilling to leave. Then that week there was a letter came from the authorities of the Church and there was a note with this letter to George saying every branch president would be getting this letter, and to read it in church, and those that are not in church try their hardest to get each one and read that letter.
It said that [if] we would live as best we could in the times that were going to be, that if we kept the Word of Wisdom (1) and the things like that, we would be blessed, that nothing from land, air, or sea would hurt any of us. We would be protected, and if it was their wish and desire, the Lord would make things so that we could come to some place in Zion.
“[If] we would live as best we could in the times that were going to be, that if we kept the Word of Wisdom (1) and the things like that, we would be blessed, that nothing from land, air, or sea would hurt any of us.
He went around, and most of them did not come to church after the elders left. They seemed to think they didn't have the priesthood like the Americans had. They told him that. It shows how little faith they had.
The first thing that happened, we were told we no longer had the hall that we had and couldn’t get one but eventually got a very small room, but it was big enough because there would be Mary Hendry, the Sutherlands, and Sister Edwards, and us. We met every Sunday. The shipyards worked seven days a week in the war, but George had this card from the Church saying he was minister of the gospel to let him off and he did get off. I had a card also because I was Relief Society president and I kept in contact with the members and nonmembers we had known and did missionary work too. It was sort of fellowshipping.
As far as being safe. George was in the shipyards and you can’t imagine the darkness. There was not a match could be lit. If you had a flashlight, it had to have a hood on it and hold it down facing the ground. It was very dark and dangerous for him because going to the shipyards and then coming home, it was in darkness. There were all kinds of ships and he worked until 10 every night. Trawlers would go out. They were brave men and also merchant ships and they had no protection and there would maybe lifeboats lost.
Sometimes they would be in the shed working. Some nights they wouldn’t go on the ship and if they did everything would be blacked out. No lights whatever. There was many a sailor lost that way. Where you walked to the ship there was a space between the boat and the pier.
One night George came [home] for his supper and then he left for work again, and Ella asked if he had two flashlights, and I said, only one. I said, he’ll be alright, don’t worry. He met the other fella that was working at the gate and asked him if he had his flashlight and he didn’t. So they held onto each other. The ramp onto the ship was just a plank of wood. George went first and crept on and the other fella held on to his feet. They got on but coming off it was worse because it was going down. He said that was murder. There was a young sailor asked them where the name of the boat was, but George didn’t say the name of the ship because they weren’t allowed to. But he said I think it’s along this way, but be awful careful. He saw he didn’t have a torch and he was sure that fellow was lost. They’d fall into the pier and nobody around to help them.
We had a lot of bombing and machine gunning. The word would get around real quick. You never got the news on the radio because they didn’t want the Germans knowing what had happened. A plane machine gunned a school when kids were in the playground, and machine gunning hit the walls of our house. It was a big granite house with large granite blocks. It never damaged us as it struck the wall of the bedroom where Ella was.
Down below there were big fields where there were army huts and foreign soldiers began to come in there in the barracks. There were Czechs and Polish soldiers that had escaped from their countries. We would hear them marching and you would hear them singing as they marched.
There were quite a few air raids and one especially bad one. (2) And when there was a raid, the next day I would stand at the window and pray and ask where I should go that day, and a name would be mentioned or a road and I would know who it was, and this day it was George Street.
“When there was a raid, the next day I would stand at the window and pray and ask where I should go that day, and a name would be mentioned or a road and I would know who it was.”
The only member lived in Charlotte Street, and that was off George Street. We were never told where the bombs fell - it went by word of mouth. So I went out and I went down to Charlotte Street, and sure enough it was Mary Hendry, and I didn’t get into the street and saw the policeman and handed [him] my card, and he said, “Well, Lass, there’s nobody there. You’ll have to go for information to the Red Cross.” I went there but Mary Hendry wasn’t there, and they told me she had gone over to the Sutherlands’ home over in Torry.
I went there and asked what happened, had she been in the house when it happened. It was late at night when the bombs fell. She said, “You know, Kate, I never went down to the shelter” (we didn’t either), but this night her neighbor, a young couple who had three children, came and asked Mary if she would look after the children. Her husband wanted to see a film in the picture house. So she had said she would watch them but the neighbor had said she wouldn’t leave them unless she took them to the shelter. Mary had said alright, she would take them to the shelter. There was no siren blew before the planes came in, so when the siren did blow she took them to the shelter and the bombs came.
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This was a propaganda poster in Britain
during WWII. I bought this postcard at the
Churchill War Rooms Museum in London in 2011.
It's framed in our kitchen now, as propaganda for
our kids. ;-) |
Mary was an old maid and she said she didn’t have any place to stay. She didn’t like staying at Granny Sutherland’s because of the noise of the kids. Sister Sutherland raised her grandchildren, both parents [of the grandchildren] were dead. Mary wanted a place of her own but that was very difficult. So I said I would see what George said and come back. Her apartment had been damaged by the bombing and she had papers and needed help with them.
At lunch time I told George and he said, "I'll tell you, we have that room. I wonder if they would give permission to put Mary in it until they build up that place again." I went with Mary to the lawyer who had the room, and I explained that Charlotte Street had been bombed and that she lived there and needed a place to stay until they built it back up and that it was impossible to get a place. We used the room as a church but Mary could put a bed in there and any little thing she would need. So it was alright and she stayed there for quite a few months until her place was ready again. I had to help her with the papers. You had to write down every article you had in the house and I had to run here and there reporting.
The time Glasgow had the big blitz [in March 1941], the planes came across from Stavanger, which is why we had so many raids. There was only 300 miles from Stavanger [Norway] to Aberdeen, and at that time radar was not perfected and the planes came over and they got near they would go down and up and over the city and bomb before the sirens blew. But this night there was the noise of the planes and I said to George, “We are in for it tonight.” The noise was terrible. He put out all the lights and opened the curtains and you could see they were close together, rows and rows. You wouldn’t believe the amount of planes, and says, “I wonder what is going to happen. They haven’t done anything yet.” They were coming over and going away. Still they kept coming all night.
In the morning he said, “Somebody’s getting it awful hard.” In the morning he went to work and I went on the tramcar and a woman said to me it was Glasgow got it. The six o’clock train from London came up to Aberdeen and they broke the news where the planes went. Glasgow was a congested city. There was not a ship touched and not anything of importance was bombed. All they did was bomb every house they could in the slum areas. These houses had more tenants in them than the Aberdeen houses. The slums in Glasgow were terrible. In one house there might be 24 tenants and there were streets and streets bombed. For three nights they came over like that.
Well, we got a note that a sister from Airdrie (outside of Glasgow) was pregnant. Regardless how short a time or how long was told to put something in their bags and come and their children would be taken care of in other places, and they were put on trains, and she came to Aberdeen and was put into Lord Aberdeen's home, [Haddo House,] about 20 miles from Aberdeen. The rich people like him and Lady Cowdray (3) and all these people opened their homes to these women, and these homes all had banqueting halls. It was a great big hall. She wanted George to come and administer to her but he couldn't get the time off, so I said I would go and see her. (4)
They were all in the banqueting hall. It was huge and there was amour all around the walls. The beds were cots and they were all in long rows with a little box to put their things in. When it was their turn to have the baby, they were taken up to the house. They were given wings in the house. This sister was still in the hall and she was real nice. George went out on Sunday and blessed her.
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A dining hall at Haddo House. Is this the same room that Kate references?
Image Source |
You took the bus out and walked up a long drive to the place. Lord Aberdeen’s home is a very old castle, but they didn’t have the money but they had these ancient tapestries on the walls. It was really interesting. It is a fact that 90 percent of those babies died even as far along as this woman. (6) She was in there 6 or 7 months and her baby was born dead. Lord Aberdeen told them they could bury their babies in their private graveyard. They had their own private chapel and graveyards and he set a place apart so those babies could be buried there. That is what bombing can do.
There was a friend of one of the members that I would visit. She wasn’t married and she was on duty doing fire watching work. Sometimes the bombs splintered and went on fire (firebombs) and immediately [when] that happened, the fire watchers would have to call and tell them to put out the fire. It was just around the corner and down the street where she lived and it was a furniture store and it was just going on the gloaming [dusk] about 6 o’clock. She walked up the street and she saw the plane and the bomb falling but she thought it was a body. The next thing when she came to, she was up against a shop door and her hat was gone and her handbag, and she saw the flames coming from a place and she ran all the way up, and she’s working away shifting furniture and helping other people.
When things began to get a little quieter there was a man came to her and said, “Do you know you are bleeding,” and said, “Look at your hands.” She was bleeding and he made her go to the Red Cross nurse. There were splinters in her hands of glass, and they took out what they could. She lost the grip in the hand and her leg somehow was affected. It would go underneath her suddenly. One day I said to her, “You don’t look good,” and she said no, her jaws were hurting like you wouldn’t believe. I said, why didn’t she go to the dentist or the doctor. She had gripped her mouth so hard her teeth had sunk into her jaw. She was sent to Lady Cowdray’s house and it was 20 miles the other way.
In 1960 when we went home [back to Aberdeen to visit,] she still couldn’t use that arm and her leg would give way under her.
There was another time George had been working late and working hard to get a job finished, and the boss said, “Boys, I am fed up to the teeth. It’s 9:30 pm. Come and we’ll go to the bar. Finish up, and Findlay you can go home.” He knew he wouldn’t go to the bar. They went to the bar and all that was left was the man who was supposed to watch the place. He came home early and I asked him why he was early. He told me, and then there were bombs falling. We were high up [on the third floor of our apartment building] and we could see in the distance in the dark that it was somewhere around the pier, but it’s very deceiving in the dark.
Well, he went to work the next day and I didn’t hear anything until he came home at lunchtime and he said, “Do you know what happened? Well, I was protected again. The shed where they were working on the boats, the bomb fell right on there and the guard, and all that was found was his boots.” Several times George was saved.
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Notes:
- Read more about the health code that George and Kate followed as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, called the Word of Wisdom: https://www.lds.org/topics/word-of-wisdom?lang=eng
- Kate is perhaps referencing the night of April 21, 1943, when between 40-50 bombers flew over Aberdeen. This was the "Aberdeen Mittwoch Blitz." Those planes, coming from Stavanger, Norway, dropped 127 bombs, killed 125 people (98 civilians, 27 servicemen at Gordon Barracks), injured 232, and damaged 9,668 homes. This was the last German raid on a Scottish City during the war. Source: http://www.mcjazz.f2s.com/Blitzkreig.htm.
- From online research as well as correspondence with representatives from The National Trust for Scotland in April 2019, I believe the house that Kate is referring to is Haddo House, a stately home about 20 miles north of Aberdeen that was opened up as a maternity hospital during the war. “Lord Aberdeen” was George Gordon, 2nd Marquess of Aberdeen, affectionately known as “Uncle Doddie.” He lived from 1879-1965. More on Haddo House: https://www.nts.org.uk/visit/places/haddo-house and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haddo_House. More on George Gordon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gordon,_2nd_Marquess_of_Aberdeen_and_Temair. I’ve added Haddo House to our list of places to visit on our next trip to Scotland!
- Lady Cowdray was the wife of Viscount Cowdray who owned Dunecht House, which, according to Google maps, is about 14 miles west of Aberdeen. More about Dunecht House here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunecht_House, and the larger Dunecht Estates here: http://www.dunechtestates.co.uk/
- What’s a marquess and a viscount? These are aristocratic or nobility titles, describing the social ranks of Scotland (and I confess, this is confusing to me as a Yankee without any context other than Downton Abbey, and my learnings are from Wikipedia, which has its limitations and misinformation as well)—in order: Duke/Duchess, Marquess/Marchioness, Earl/Countess, Viscount/Viscountess, Baron/Baroness. More information here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peerage_of_Scotland. And for Downton Abbey fans, here: https://historymaniacmegan.com/2016/01/05/the-nobility-and-aristocracy-of-downton-abbey/.
- In April 2019, I asked the National Trust of Scotland whether there was a visitor book for Haddo House from this time period. It would be neat to see the signatures of George and Kate in it. Unfortunately, they have been unable to find such a record.
- I’m not sure how to confirm the data point that 90 percent of babies delivered at Haddo House were stillborn. The historian for Haddo House (during our correspondence in April 2019) wasn’t aware of such a figure, and based on the number of babies born at Haddo House, the 90 percent figure seems high. In fact, it’s recorded that about 1200 babies were born at Haddo House. “Nearly 1200 babies were born at Haddo Emergency Hospital, as it was known, and many still come back to visit known affectionately as the Haddo Babies.” Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haddo_House.
