At the Graveyard - John Crawford (1881-1977)

This week we’re returning to my Scottish family with my great grandfather John Crawford, who was a grave yard caretaker. John was the husband of Alice Robertson, who I wrote about several months ago.

John was born in Greenock Scotland on January 2^nd 1882 to James Crawford and Mary Jane Menzies. James and Mary Jane had recently married and James was an Engine Fitter working in Greenock. Mary Jane was a widow with two small boys from her late first husband, Alexander Adams. She was also the daughter of Robert Menzies and Sarah Borland, who I wrote about for the DNA prompt. John grew up in the port city of Greenock with his two older half-brothers and two younger sisters. Later in life John remembered how the family would walk two miles to church then spend the afternoon learning the catechism and singing psalms with a full four-part harmony as a family. John’s father, James, would read him stories of the covenanters who were killed in days past and would show him where they were buried.

John (center front) and his family in Greenock, Scotland

After John finished school he apprenticed as a joiner or carpenter. John’s half-brother, Alexander Adams, moved from Scotland to New York City in 1900. The whole Crawford family considered moving to New York, but one of John’s sisters was very against the idea and the plan was not enacted. Alexander urged his younger brother, John, to follow him to New York City. Alexander even lent him money for his ticket and in October of 1904 John boarded a ship in Glasgow and two weeks later arrived in America. He moved in with Alexander and his wife, Edith, in the Bronx, and began working as a carpenter. Throughout the early 1900s he worked on countless buildings in New York City.

John’s family was part of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Scotland and as soon as he arrived he joined the Second Reformed Presbyterian Church in New York. It was there that he met Alice Robertson, a fellow immigrant from Scotland and they were married on 19 June 1916. A year later he was elected a Deacon in the church. For a time John and his family moved to Walton New York, but eventually returned to the New York City area and took over the management of the Bronxville Cemetery. The Cemetery was owned by John’s Church and had been moved from Manhattan out to the suburbs after a law forbidding cemeteries on Manhattan was passed. John was compensated for his work in the cemetery by being allowed to live in a house next to the cemetery.

               John was hard of hearing and by the end of his life would be totally deaf. Once lightning hit the chimney during family worship. John didn’t hear it and kept praying. Alice asked their daughter, Jean, to go out and count how many bricks had fallen down. Jean was not about to go out in a storm and refused. As John got older he began to work as a cabinet maker, crafting furniture, rather than buildings. I have a jewelry box he made and there are several places in his former house where he added to the woodwork, like a holder for magazines near the fireplace.

               As John got older his hearing went completely and he retired from carpentry and cemetery

work. He and Alice lived first in an apartment nearby, then with their daughter. Once John went to New York and Alice became terribly worried when he didn’t return. The family began looking everywhere for him. Eventually he showed up safe and sound. He had fallen asleep in the New York Public Library and not known how late it was. In 1971 John and his great grandson were photographed by life magazine, where his daughter worked as a proof-reader. It was a segment about children and their immigrant great grandparents. John described his great grandson as a “wee rascal, but very loveable”. John died on December 1^st 1977 after two years of illness.