Mary Mackay
ID # 4193, (1864-1935)
| Baptism | Mary Mackay was baptized on 29 June 1864 at Stellarton, Nova Scotia. |
| Marriage | She married John Buchanan, son of William Buchanan and Catharine Harvie, on 25 January 1889 at Indore, India. The date for the marriage of John Buchanan and Mary MacKay is taken from the family bible of William Buchanan and Elizabeth Sowden. The place of marriage is taken from Ruth Buchanan's book, 'My Mother', see page 2. 'They were...married...in Indore by the Rev. Dr. J. Fraser Campbell.' |
| Death | She died on 15 May 1935 at Amkhut, India, at age 70. |
| Burial | She was buried at Amkhut. |
| Note | The date of Mary's birth is taken from her daughter Ruth's book, 'My Mother', 1938. Her name, MacKay, was pronounced Mu-Ky. This is apparently the Gaelic pronunciation. Mary MacKay's story is remarkable, for she became a medical doctor in the 1880s, studying medicine at University of Toronto. This would have been a difficult undertaking for a woman in this era. Her daughter Edith said that with whatever problems she had, she faced them with a sense of humour. An example the family loved to tell was occasioned by the fact that it was considered improper for a woman to take rooms on campus at this time. She was obliged to take rooms off campus and would travel to and from school by the trolley. This did not exempt her from the rigours of study and she had such things as dissection for anatomy to deal with. She would carry human specimens back to her room for study, such as a hand, particularly mentioned, or some other part of the human anatomy, and she would transport them in a hat box. She would chuckle when telling the story and said that she often wondered what would happen if she dropped the hat box on the trolley! When daughter Edith was expected, John and Mary returned to Canada and, it seems, stayed with Dan Buchanan in Galt where Edith was born in 1905. They remained long enough that, so the family story goes, Edith was baptised at Central Church in Galt in September of the year. Her cousin Eleanor was said to have been baptised at the same service. One glitch in this story is that the Presbyterian Church archives have been visited and microfilm of Central Church's records examined without finding the baptism. A photograph of the gravestone at Amkhut has not been found. It is known that both John and Mary are buried there. We must believe that MacKay family connections had a gravestone erected at Riverton Cemetery, Riverton, Pictou County, Nova Scotia, that named John Buchanan as being born at Galt in 1859 and that he died at Indore, India, in 1945. It also tells that his wife, Mary MacKay, died in India in 1935. Below this is recorded the passing of Charlotte MacKay Hirtle, 1863-1943, and we must believe that she, Charlotte, is indeed buried in Riverton Cemetery. The inscriptions for John Buchanan and Mary MacKay will be to commemorate them. The information for the Riverton Cemetery gravestone is taken from Find-a-Grave. John Buchanan did indeed die at a hospital at Indore. He was buried at Indore, and Edith told the story that she and Ruth were quite okay with him being buried there. Some years after Ruth's passing, Edith was contacted by the Presbyterian Church to say that the Indore Cemetery where John was originally buried was being razed. Edith and the church made contributions that her dad's remains should be moved to the cemetery at Amkhut and placed beside his wife. There was a video made of the service at Amkhut that had to do with the transfer of the remains. This is in the possession of the Presbyterian Archives in Toronto. The stone at Riverton has John being born in Galt. Best information available has John being born in Blenheim Township of Oxford County. The farm was adjacent to the village of Washington. |
Children of Mary Mackay and John Buchanan |
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| Last Edited | 12 Aug 2025 |