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This is the house (below) that started me on my search for
Whitsome's story. It's the far half of the taller houses in the centre of the
views from the west, and has been an Inn
and the village telephone exchange at one time or another. It's now called
Ewart House, a thriving B&B.
It's possible to date this picture reasonably well, assuming that the
people in the picture are the owners. The elderly lady must be Mary
Forsythe (1824-1906). I assume that the man standing so proudly in the
doorway of the shop is her son, James Grieve (1856-1906), inn-keeper and
post master. At the time of the 1901 census, they had Mary's orphaned
grandson living with them - Victor John Grieve was then 11, about the age
of the boy in the picture. Mary's daughter Isabella (1863-1954) married
James Purves (1861-1917) in 1900, and they lived very close to the Post
Office - it would fit the convention of the time if she was sitting beside
her mother, while her unmarried sister, Jane (1867-1926), stands at the
end. Should all of this speculation be correct, the man standing beside the
window is most likely to be Isabella's husband, James.
After her brother's death, Jane ran the business. Victor eventually
inherited and, after 4 generations, the house and business passed out of
the family.
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