"Glass" and his wife "Mairi Ruadh".

As mentioned elsewhere,my grandfather,Donald Macleod ("Glass"),was born in Garenin in 1860, and was one of the Macleods whose ancestors first settled in the Sithean,the small hamlet below the present Garenin road. Garenin grew into a sizable village,with "Macleod" the predominant surname. In 1890,Glass,a young man of 30 years,married his sweetheart,Mary Macneil,aged just 19, who stayed out the road at No.14. She had striking red hair, and because of this my grandmother was always known as "Mairi Ruadh". Their first marital home was in the small building which today houses the "laundry" in the Garenin Thatched Village. In 1904 he moved to Croft No.4 where he had built a house on a relative's croft(his father,Norman's,I think).This is "Taigh Glass",No.4A,one of the thatched houses which today can be rented from the Garenin Trust. As we have seen in earlier postings,Glass acquired the newly created croft at No.5 Dalmore in 1920,and the whole family moved there in 1923. Dalmore was just a couple of miles up the coast,which was just as well as many of the children(my mother told me) were very homesick for Garenin,and were always making return visits there to see their cousins and friends. Two of Glass's nine children never lived to see the home in Dalmore,his son Donald who died in Holland in 1916 during WWI(see earlier postings),and Christina who died from tuberculosis in 1912,aged only 19 years. My mother said that "Cairistiona" was a very Christian girl,and that in the last week before she died in December,she wakened once and said to her mother that she would dearly love a piece of fresh fish, "A'Ghraidh,this is the middle of winter,and there are no boats out",said her mother. "God will provide,I am sure",replied Cairistiona. Her brother Norman,then aged 9,was out on the moor behind Garenin when he saw a strange thing indeed. There in a peat bog,jumping and flapping about,was a good sized sole,which could only have been transported there by some seabird,whose bill was unable to hold on to the "leabag" before Norman lifted it. Every one was amazed at what happened,except Christina.
Glass was 60 when he moved to Dalmore and 63 before he saw his house built and his wife and children settled there. How many nowadays could start a new life, at what is at present an age to retire. They don't make them like "Glass" and "Mairi Ruadh" anymore,and they have not done so for a very long time,I think.