Mount Thom Inhabitants
My Father and his siblings made up a family of nine, four girls and five boys. All were born to Henrietta Archibald MacAulay and Thomas MacAulay on the family farm, either on the upper place, or on the lower place. The sons were Russell, Jim, Tom, Wilfred and Perley. The daughters were Elsie, Nettie (Henrietta), Lucy and Margaret. As a group, their lives more than spanned the twentieth century, Elsie having been born at the end of the 1800’s and the last sister, Margaret, living into the 2000’s.
Every one of them was unique, intelligent, loving, hardworking and full of fun. When Lucy had passed from this world, the following poem was my tribute to her delightful self.
Lucy Anna MacAulay Jones……Auntie Anna….4/15/99
By Lida MacAulay Bassler
Anna adored her violin,
But not as much as her kith and kin.
She lived where reality couldn’t reach her,
So, logically she became a teacher.
Delighted was she by all her books,
Imagination’s cozy nooks.
Within her charming little housie
Dwelt this fey and gentle mousie.
Her hair of red was quite a treasure;
To spy it gave her Papa pleasure.
She married once, as it was her Will;
They’re both in Heaven, together still.
She loved with a loyalty sure and brave,
Loving us still beyond the grave.
Her sweetness was too vast to gauge,
Undiminished by time and age.
Her laughter rang like fairy bells,
And in her loved ones memory dwells.
Her hugs and kisses all were pearls,
Dispensed to all her boys and girls.
Though she’d no taste of motherhood,
Nieces and nephews made her brood.
Her “babbies” all…loved like none other,
In blood our Auntie, at heart a mother.
To all the youngsters of her crowd,
She told great tales….she danced out loud!
She played her tunes on the violin,
And seasoned them all with her marvelous grin.
O such a happy delightful child,
Whose soul was tied to the highlands wild.
A Gaelic stream flowed strong within her;
She’d often have Robbie Burns for dinner.
Her tales, chock full of Scottish sheep
Who leaped and scampered us all to sleep.
Lucy knew millions of lines of verse,
All about giants and ogres and worse!
She lived life well, and at ninety-three,
Gently slipped out of mortality…
Sailed straight to that Heaven, I’m very sure,
Reserved for the innocent and the pure.
There she undoubtedly company keeps
With leprechauns, fairies and soft, wooly sheep.
She’s telling her tales of the Dear Ol’ Sod
To gathering Angels…
And also God.
As long as we’re on the earth, we’ll miss her,
Wishing we could, just once more, kiss her.
Describe her perfectly?
Well, I canna’;
There’s never been any like Lucy Anna.