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Yankee Invasion on the Island

I believe! I believe! I believe in the kindness of strangers!

By Lynne Hoy

Off the northern coast of Scotland there are a hundred or so islands of various size, population and usage. Some are totally barren while others are used only for the grazing of sheep. Many of them are found near the coastline and are easily be accessed from the mainland.

But, if you were to continue 70 miles or so across the Minch you would arrive at what is termed the “Long Island”. Not one island, but a chain of islands running from the Isle of Lewis on the north 130 miles south to Barra. You have arrived in the Outer Hebrides.

The islands are mostly a rich sandy soil with plenty of fresh water available in the form of inland lochs. Trees seldom get a claim on the land as the wind blows constantly from one direction and then the other. Crops and flowers flourish in limited space and sheep cover the green hillsides. The weather is wet and cool with long continuous days in summer and shortened daylight come winter. The most beautiful beaches in the world with shining white sand and turquoise blue waters are found here. Why, might you ask, have these marvelous beaches remained untouched by the tourists from the West? Could it be that the temperature seldom reaches above 70 degrees and the great Northern Atlantic is always cold?

It was from the Island of North Uist that my paternal grandmother immigrated in the early 1900’s. One of eight children, she left her homeland not knowing if or when she might return. From an isolated croft, where Gaelic was the spoken language, she migrated to Pittsburgh to become a domestic. In America, she met my grandfather, another Scot, married and raised a family of four sons. Luckily, she returned to her homeland many times over the years. She became an American in body and soul, but her heart was always in the Highlands. As children she would delight us by telling stories about her early life that revolved around the land and the sea.

This past summer a group of her descendants decided to invade the “Island” and enjoy the beauty while visiting with relatives both there and on the Mainland. Fifteen Americans headed across the Big Pond. Ranging in age from 11 to 85, we had everything under control. My mother, the eldest of the group was born in Scotland and had expressed a desire to visit, along the way, with a cousin living in Glasgow. Months before making the trip, I had written trying to set up a time and place to meet with him and his family, but received no answer.

Our stay on North Uist consisted of meeting up with many relatives, with the prize for distance going to one “cousin” who came from Australia. We managed the “tourist bit” of seeing the old homestead and touring the Island. We took over the local hotel for an entire family dinner with locals and visitors present, checked family birth and death records with the registrar, visited the family cemetery overlooking the sea, walked among the sheep on the moors and watched the shimmering sunset over the water.

One morning as I ate breakfast in our hotel the desk clerk came to tell me that I had a phone call. As I neared the phone, she whispered that it was “the Police”. My heart stopped as I wondered who had died. But realism set in. We were all here! Now my thought was “Who could be calling?” The first thing that the Police told me was “Not to worry. Everyone is fine”. The officer then proceeded to give me a phone number for the “missing cousin” in Glasgow and asked me to call them.

After talking with Cousin Margaret, who married into the maternal side of the family, I began to piece the story together. She had lost my letter and wanted to meet up with us. She remembered only that we would be in Scotland around the beginning of the month and would be going to one of the “outer islands”. (Most Scots have never been to the Outer Hebrides and some have no idea where they are located.) Being a resourceful person, she had called the local police station in Glasgow and told them of her dilemma. They in turn gave her the phone numbers and told her to call the police on each of the islands beginning with the largest and working her way down in size and population. That is exactly what she did, calling one after another, until she reached North Uist.

The police quickly responded with “Yes, we know where the American’s are staying!” Rather than giving her the phone number and invading our privacy they immediately notified me. I couldn’t believe it.

To make a long story short, we met on our return to the Mainland. My mother’s cousin is now 87 years of age, has been in a nursing home for the last five years suffering from dementia. He is not the cousin that my mother once knew. But his wife, Margaret, knew how many times he had spoken of Cousin Beth and how close they had been as children. She was determined that my mother would have “one more chance” to meet with him.

My thoughts as we left the nursing home were about the kindness of strangers and how those police officers had passed the message from one person to the next in hopes of uniting two people. Perhaps their compassion comes from the fact that most Scottish families have “lost” family to “the colonies” (Canada, Australia, Africa, India, New Zealand and America) during the last century.

My faith is the world continues. But I can’t help wondering: Would this have happened in America?

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