My Ancestors Stories

I first met my great grandmother, Caroline Anstey Garrett, in 1977, when I was 15 years old - she was 90 years old and had just immigrated to Australia!   She was widowed in 1949 when she was 61 and went to live with her youngest daughter, Carrie, in the USA in 1951 and they also lived in Japan during this time. She returned to Scotland in 1954 after her sister, Lizzie, was also widowed and they lived together for the next 23 years until her sister died. It was at this time that she came out to Australia to live with her daughter, Helen and where she was to meet her seven great-grandchildren for the first time. 

Aunt Carrie, my great aunt, was born Caroline McDougall one hundred years ago on 11 September 1921, in the family home at 117 Albert Street, Townhead, Glasgow. She was the youngest of three daughters born to Alexander Murray McDougall and Caroline Anstey Garrett. The family lived in a two room tenement, with a recess bed in each room. Albert Street was renamed McAslin Street sometime during the 1920s.   Also residing in the family home were her maternal grandfather, Albert Garrett and aunt, Lizzie Garrett.  Her grandfather lived with the family until his death in 1939 and Aunt Lizzie until she married in 1941.  After leaving school, Carrie worked as a book pager, however during the war, she worked as an explosives worker at the Ardeer Factory in Stevenston and travelled down from Glasgow on the train for her shifts there. After the war she returned to her work as a book pager.  Carrie married Alexander Campbell, a sergeant in the United States Army at the Barony...