A dear friend of mine recently shared with me some of the contents of a family album that was kept by her mother and Granny. On one page of the album was a newspaper cutting with the above photograph. The newspaper was the Press & Journal, November 1951 and the photograph was annotated as follows:
Wishing to learn a little more of the life of Miss Howitt, I looked into the archives. I was saddened to find this [just a few months after the photograph was taken]:
6 March 1952, Aberdeen Evening Express:
This was the croft that the Howitt sisters were born in and lived all their lives. There was also a sister called Helen who died in April 1939. None of the sisters married.
Mains Croft, Westhills, first edition OS map:
18 March 1952, Aberdeen Evening Express:
Personal thought: I am grateful to my friend for sharing her family scrapbook with me. She knew that I would be interested in the contents. This delightful photograph of Miss Howitt outside her family croft moved me. The story, at least that of which I could uncover, moved me even more. Not long after Sian and I were married we bought an old dilapidated farmhouse not far from Mains Croft. Every day, on the way to and from work as doctors in Aberdeen, we passed by, without knowing, the very spot where Mains Croft once stood.
I have added the ‘Misses Howitt’ to the Hole Ousia page: Folk worth talking about