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| John McDonald and Ursilla Katherine Bruce Beattie |
Some of the information included in this life history are details of Kate’s parents (Ella's maternal grandparents), John McDonald Beattie (1860-1936) and Ursilla (pronounced "yer-SILL-a) Katherine Bruce Beattie (1862-1937).
As we are in the process of having a gravestone placed on John and Ursilla’s currently unmarked grave in Allenvale Cemetery, Aberdeen, Scotland, I thought I’d include excerpts from George and Kate’s history here.
This is John McDonald and Ursilla Katherine Bruce Beattie, according to their only child, Ursula (pronounced "ER-sill-a) Katherine Bruce Beattie Findlay, known to most as Kate.
Kate described her parents as having "lived a happy married life together… . They never had too much money but love abided in their home." What a tender tribute!
Also see the blog post about John's wife, Ursilla Katherine Bruce Beattie, here (https://greatflyingscots.blogspot.com/2017/02/meet-ursilla-katherine-bruce-beattie.html).
And please note: I’ve added clarifying details to Kate's narrative in brackets.
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My father [John McDonald Beattie] was born in Aberdeen, Scotland of humble parentage. His mother [Elizabeth Beattie] was not married and had to work for her living at a Jute works [flax mill]. Her folks [Adam and Janet Petrie Beattie] looked after the baby while she was at work.
His mother [Elizabeth Beattie] had gone with this man [John McDonald] and she became pregnant and then she found out he was a married man. He came from Grantown and that’s down by Leith. He must have been doing a job up there in Aberdeen. She proved it through the courts. Of his childhood I know nothing until he reached the year of 10. [This date might be slightly off as his mother passed when he was 9 years old, and he was living at the Aberdeen Institute for the Deaf and Dumb just after he turned 10. See the footnote 1 for more details.](1)
This was a turning point in his life as one day while playing near the fire in the kitchen a large pot, which was hanging [with chains] over the fire with boiling water in it, fell on him and the shock took away his hearing also speech…I don’t know if it was the pot or the water that struck him. He didn’t have any marks on his face but he was totally deaf and I only once heard him speak and the only time I ever him angry. He never lost his temper but this time he did. He swore and that was the only word I ever heard my father say.
But my father, after his accident, his mother was a [flax] mill worker, and I suppose she couldn’t look after him but she could have done better than she did….The family being poor could not look after him or educate him as they put him into a school for the deaf. But in doing so they seem to have deserted him completely as from that day till he was sixteen years of age they never visited him. So in his pride he in turn did not go visit them the remainder of his life.(2)
[The home that he was put in is] still there but I don’t know what it’s used for now but it was a small
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| John McDonald and Ursilla Katherine Bruce Beattie |
He took up the trade of Boiler making.(4)
In Aberdeen there was an excellent Deaf and Dumb Institute … on Rose Street in Aberdeen (5) ... so in the evenings he went there and met others like himself and played draughts or cards or billiards. On Sundays going to service at the church attached to the Institute. He met my mother there. She was just on a visit to Aberdeen on her way back home to Shetland Islands.
[The Deaf and Dumb Institute is] … a very nice building with three floors and as you went in the door there was the office. It was kept up mostly by donations from wealthy families all around. Workplaces used to have a work day that they donated. The big houses, the families like Lady Birnie, were very good to the deaf.
On the bottom floor as you walked along the passage there was a great big dance hall and there was a stage and a kitchen. They used to have parties and the Christmas parties with a great big Christmas tree.
There were dances once a month and the floor was wooden and it always was kept polished so that they could dance beautifully. When they danced the floor bounced and the music was felt with their feet and they could keep up with it and dance and some of them were real good dancers.
Upstairs was a small church that was very pretty and very nice and they always had a good service and the singing was all done by the hands. Next to that a big kitchen and that was where they had classes for the women. Sewing, baking, and all that kind of stuff.
Upstairs again was a big, real nice room for the men. It had billiard tables and all kinds of games. The other room was a reading room and there the best of magazines. We could borrow a book from the library. The children of the families all knew each other and were good pals and went to the picnics and parties. Very few that are married, that both of them are deaf and dumb that have deaf children. In those days measles caused deafness mostly and diphtheria and scarlet fever or an accident like my father and my mother. It’s very seldom that they are born deaf.
[My mother’s] family were not pleased at [my parent’s] courtship as my father came of working people, however, they saw that they were suitably married and then washed their hands of my mother. She was 38 years of age when she married; their first baby was born when she was 40 and the baby died before birth. Then two years later I was born to them.
She and my dad lived a happy married life together….They never had too much money but love abided in their home.
My father in disposition was of a happy nature. Kindly and loving. To my knowledge he had a smooth, uneventful life just doing day by day normal things of life….He was a good man, a gentle person. He had a sense of humor, that’s where I get mine. He would tease my mother….He lived till he was 76 years of age.
In that time I tried to find out about his people but could find nothing and even I went to the Edinburgh Registrar Office but I couldn’t find anything. He was known by the name of John McDonald Beattie. His mother was Elizabeth Beattie so she had registered him in her own name.
However in July of 1954 a dear friend of mine in Edinburgh, Scotland wanted to know if she could do anything for me. So I wrote her asking if her son who was on vacation in Edinburgh could go to the Registrar Office and see if he could get information on my father’s mother as I knew nothing of his father I couldn’t ask about him. Well in September 1954 his reply came back and the reply was that he had discovered a statement which said that the Elizabeth Beattie had proved the parentage of her child John McDonald Beattie to one named John McDonald.
[In January 1864, a little over 3 years after John was born, his mother Elizabeth had the birth entry corrected.] "In an action relating to the paternity of a child named John McDonald Beattie born on or about 31 October 1860, at the instance [?] of Poor Elizabeth Beattie, Millworker, [?] St. Andrew Street, Aberdeen, against John McDonald, Boilermaker, Kirkpatricksland, [?] Street, …. the Sheriff of Edinburghshire on the 10th of December 1863, found that the said child was the Illegitimate child of the parties afore[?]."(6)
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John passed away on 8 May 1936, when he was 75 years old, of chronic endocarditis, chronic bronchitis, and a peptic ulcer, at his home at 26 1/2 Bank Street, Aberdeen. He and Ursilla (who passed away the following year) are buried in Allenvale Cemetery in Aberdeen.(7)
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- Per statutory death records, Elizabeth Beattie passed away on 7 July 1869, when John was 9 years old. Perhaps he lived with Elizabeth’s parents after that? Or were they already living with them? In any case, Elizabeth’s parents, Adam and Janet Petrie Beattie soon passed also, on 25 Mar 1869 and 26 October 1869, respectively.
- Through email correspondence with Aberdeen University, which keeps some records on the Aberdeen Institute for the Deaf and Dumb, I learned the following on 13 Oct 2017: “I have checked through the minute book of the Aberdeen Institute for the Deaf and Dumb (MS 3428/2) and found a reference to a John Beattie: “November 28th 1870 - John Beattie, an orphan illegitimate sent by St Nicholas Parochial Board joined the institution Thursday 24th November.” It’s heartbreaking to think that, per Kate’s understanding of his childhood, that his family never visited or wrote letters and had abandoned him, but in reality, they had all passed away. However, I'm wondering where John lived or who he lived with between the time his grandmother died (26 October 1869) and he was admitted to the Aberdeen Institute for the Deaf and Dumb on 28 November 1870.
- I wonder, where was this building, that was an orphanage/home for deaf children?
- Still to do: Research more about the ironworker trade and the Aberdeen Iron Foundry (location, examples of work, etc.)
- I also wonder whether the building on Rose street that housed the Aberdeen Institute for the Deaf and Dumb is still there?
- Wow, did John's mother, Elizabeth have guts! It was 3 years after John's birth that she had his birth entry corrected to include John's father's name. But we're so glad she did! She must have been a strong woman, despite the apparent ridicule she received, insulting her by calling her "poor Elizabeth."
- Read more about John McDonald and Ursilla Katherine Bruce Beattie's final resting spot here: https://greatflyingscots.blogspot.com/2017/05/john-mcdonald-and-ursilla-katherine.html
