Isabella Helen Fairbairn (1904 - 1996)

Born May 1904 in Ednam, Kelso, Roxboroughhire, Scotland

Ancestors

Wife of William John Cronyn — married 14 Apr 1946 in The Presbyterian Church, Waterford, Co. Waterford, Ireland

Died 24 Jan 1996 at age 91 in St. Joseph's Nursing Home, Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny, Ireland

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Biography

Isabella Helen ("Ella") Fairbairn was born on May 2, 1904, at Ednam, Kelso, Roxboroughshire, Scotland, and her birth was registered there on May 11. Her parents were Edward Fairbairn (a "Blacksmith (Master)") and his wife, Isabella Hoggarth Fairbairn.

Note: Depending on the documents one reads, Bella's "proper" given name is variously written as Isabella, Isabel, and Isobella. However, her name was clearly registered at birth, in Ednam, as Isabella Helen Fairbairn. She was always widely known to friends and acquaintances as simply "Ella".

We can identify Ella in the Scottish census data for 1911 (in Ednam) and then again in 1921, when she is living with her mother and two brothers (one of them her elder brother William, see below) at Cringle Bank Cottage, Oxnam, Roxboroughshire.

It is not clear exactly when Ella left her home in Scotland and came to Ireland. However, her father had died in 1916 and it may have become necessary for Ella to "make a living" to help her mother when she was relatively young.

What we do know is that from about 1924 to 1945 she became the personal secretary to Major Dermot McCalmont at Mount Juliet, near Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny, when Mount Juliet was a highly successful stud farm with some 200 employees.

Ella appears to have been able to bring her brother, William Fairbairn, to join her at Mount Juliet as an assistant steward in 1930.

On April 18, 1946, Ella married William John ("DIckie") Cronyn -- a local farmer who lived at Friars Hill, Thomastown, close to Mount Juliet, and who she would have known for years -- at the Presbyterian Church, Waterford, Co. Waterford. They would have no children.

Ella and her husband lived together at Friars Hill until his death in 1969, and Ella continued to live there for almost all of the rest of her life. She was a close friend of her husband's older sister, Grace ("Gracie") Cronyn Roberts.

Ella passed away on January 24, 1996, at St. Joseph's Nursing Home, Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny. She was buried with her husband and her father-in-law in the Cronyn family grave at St. Mary's churchyard, Thomastown.

Sources

• Personal acquaintance and knowledge
• Cronyn family history and genealogy
• Detailed information about this individual is accessible on Ancestry (see https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/19962126/person/19930460853/facts)
• Birth registration documentation on ScotlandsPeople (see https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/image-viewer/stat_births/stat_births-407796_3672256)
• Scottish census data for 1911 and 1921
• Report of Ella and Dickie's marriage in the Waterford News and Star on Friday, April 26, 1946
• Ella's incomplete obituary (posted on the Ancestry web site), probably in a Kilkenny newspaper in 1996