Sent by Carol and posted with permission:
"Dad does tell me that his great grandfather Hubert [Soutar], Simon's eldest son he remembers ( although I think it may be through his first wife which looks more and more like a mistress to me) to be the spitting image of Simon but heavier, he tells me that Hubert was more a controller of family finances and had his hand in his pocket not only for the rest of the family but also complete strangers. He worked and managed the wharf business, and even when the staff had no work and therefore no pay, he would dip into his own pocket and give them money to make sure their family had something to buy food etc. Once on a very stormy evening, he came home soaked to the bone, when his wife asked where was his coat or why he hadn't got transport, he had given it away to someone else who needed it because of the storm He was a very generous man, and very charitable. Apparently on his death he had thousands of people follow his coffin through the streets and there was a big write up in the Gleaner, as yet I don't have the dates and can't therefore find copies, hopefully i'll find a source or date soon."

I was talking to Mother the other day, and she said her mother kept in touch with a Mrs. Doris (Hunter) Stone in Richmond, VA whose father was related to the Soutars and was captain of a merchant ship. She visited her once in the 1940s and says Mrs. Hunter told her that a Soutar was the artistic director for the first four years of the Edinburgh International Festival, which also includes the Military Tattoo at Edinburgh Castle.

The June Owens' Outpost is up.

I've finally decided to re-name this blog "Ancestories" because it more closely describes what I'd like to see posted here. Its new web address is:
http://ancestories.blogspot.com

If you have any family stories you would like to share, send them to me by e-mail at asowens@ix.netcom.com and I will post them. If you think you would like to post them yourself, let me know, and I will add you to the blog member list.

Stories add life to the birth-marriage-death outlines constructed by facts, and help us see our families as real people in the times in which they lived. When distant relations share stories of common ancestors, a more complete picture of each personality emerges, and we gain a deeper understanding of who we are.