John ? and Isobel Grieve

Yet again it has been some time since I posted here and part of the reason is that the dull, grey and wet weather we're having this summer is making it very hard to read the engravings on the old stones. A bit of sunshine can be very illuminating but sadly that has been mainly absent. However here is one of the older stones in the graveyard and it is adorned with a very funny looking face or skull with above it the words Memento Mori.

Whatever text there was in addition to that has now been lost so I'm depending on Sheila A. Scott's book Peeblesshire Monumental Engravings for further information and even in her time there was not that much more. This is what she tells us it said:

Here lyes John.............(March) 1720 aged (62) and his wife Isobel Grieve died 7th February....aged (65).

John Fairbairn and family

Sorry I have been absent for a bit, life sort of got in the way and I had rather a lot of other things going on. But here is a relatively modern stone in the graveyard. The text reads:

Erected

in memory of

John Fairbairn

who did at Carpet 16th April 1876

aged 83 years

also his son

George

who died at Cowden Burn 28th March 1885

aged 37 years

and his wife

Helen Laidlaw

who died at Peebles 17th April 1894

aged 85 years

also their daughter

Mary

widow of William Laidlaw

who died at Peebles 14th May 1921

aged 80 years

Jesus said

I am the Resurrection and the life

he that believeth in my though he were

dead yet shall he live.