Mary’s Eye
From reading Mary’s letters to the Art Gallery in the archive I knew she lost the sight in one eye in her later years. I thought this may have been down to old age but when researching the Guild of St George link in the Sheffield Archive I came across another reference to this. In a letter to the Guild dated 22nd November 1939, she writes
I have had a bad accident to one of my eyes from the handle of a lift door…..it had to be taken out to save the other…. I have to be thankful that I still have one good eye.
She was in her 90th year. Her optimistic tone under such difficult circumstances is a reflection of both her physical and mental resilience and determination (nothing was ever going to beat her!) and I think helps further build the picture of her indomitable character. At the time of writing she is living near Holcombe, Bath, I think with her niece and clerical husband (there is reference to this in a subsequent letter dated 20th June, 1945).
Mary carried on writing and latterly, dictating correspondence right to the end of her life. Too frail to write herself, the last letter in the Art Gallery archive which bears her name (written on her behalf by Elizabeth Tranter) is dated June 26th 1949, a mere three months before her death on September 15th in the same year. Sharon
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