Informant's name on death cert

[JMStrachan]

It's also possible the registrar misheard her, or simply made a mistake when writing it down. Registrars were only human after all.

[loobylooayr]

According to the 1911 census in Cathcart, his only daughter is named Christina.  She was 14 at the time.  In Scotland's People, I am not finding a Christina Campbell married to a man whose name begins with "Win" other than a George Windram or a John Winter. Neither marriage seems to fit the case.

Hi TropiConsul,
Surely Christina's age fits . You quoted her as being 14 on the 1911 Census. At the marriage 12 years later in 1923 she's 26.
But if there is a discrepancy and all other names and addresses fit I would agree with previous posters and guess that either a deliberate mistake (Christina shaving off some years to appear more youthful) or an accidental mistake (recorded wrongly by registrar) was made.
Looby

[TropiConsul]

You are correct, looby.  I erroneously recorded her birth date as 1887 when it should have been presumed 1897 from the census information.  This is a stupid math error on my part.  Her brothers are as follows:
Donald born 1891
William Gray born 1893
Thomas born 1896

Interestingly, her mother was eleven years older than her father according to the 1911 census.  We can assume she wasn't lying about her age!

[loobylooayr]

You are correct, looby.  I erroneously recorded her birth date as 1887 when it should have been presumed 1897 from the census information.  This is a stupid math error on my part.  Her brothers are as follows:
Donald born 1891
William Gray born 1893
Thomas born 1896

Interestingly, her mother was eleven years older than her father according to the 1911 census.  We can assume she wasn't lying about her age!

Probably not....few women made themselves older
I have an ancestor who managed to lose six years when she married her second younger husband. He was in his late 20's , she was in her early 40's ( claimed to be mid 30's) and managed to sustain the lie throughout several Censuses - although her age did waver up and down by 2/3 years. She must have forgotten what age gap she'd originally given. Her first marriage bore no children but amazingly she had 3 children to her 2nd husband - the youngest of whom was born when her correct age was 50 
You mentioned your grandmother " the diva of Broadway song and stage". Was she a musical actress, TropiConsul ?

Looby

[TropiConsul]

She was indeed, Looby.  She was very much the white-haired grande dame when I knew her in Houston in the 1960's.  She was a great hit with ladies' salons who marveled at her skits and stories and songs delivered in a Glasgow accent.  I am told she won a prize for best new soprano in the UK at some point around the opening of hostilities in WWI and she would claim that she was a star performer before she met my grandfather (they shared a voice coach).  She seems to have been noted for a performance of "The Lass with the Delicate Air" by Michael Arne.  I think she must have been a paid performer at private entertainments before she met my grandfather.  I have read that George Grossmith, who was the original performer in the comedian roles for the Gilbert & Sullivan operettas, earned more from private performances than he did from D'Oyly Carte in the smash hit public performances of those operettas.  I can't find a public performance for Margaret Gordon Dunsmore prior to her appearance in Graham Moffat's "Don't Tell" at Broadway's Nora Bayes Theatre in 1920, the year of her marriage to my grandfather, John Campbell who was a veteran of the 10th Australian Light Horse with service in Egypt.  John Campbell's enlistment papers show him to be "actor, with good shorthand" and born in Glasgow.  If you do a google search on John Campbell and Pink Dandies, you will find many notices of his performances in New Zealand and Australia.               

[loobylooayr]

Hi again,

Sorry not to have responded sooner - had computer problems.
Your grandma sounds like a really interesting lady    .....and your grandfather must have been a bit of a character too! I had a look at the newspaper articles about the Pink Dandies (love that name  ), it's marvellous to be able to find information like that at just the touch of a mouse and a keyboard.

Good luck with the rest of your research with Christina Campbell,

Looby

[TropiConsul]

I confess it is quite astonishing to read an interview conducted with your grandfather when he was in his twenties.  I can tell you that his ideas on the proper form of discipline for young boys did not mellow with age!  From The Prahran Telegraph of 3 Feb 1917:

Mr. John Campbell, who came out to Australia as stage manager for the "Bunty Pulls the Strings" Co., holds to the opinion that discipline in boyhood is a good thing, and incidentally that Australian boys and girls do not get enough of it. For " himself he was brought up in Scotland in an atmosphere very similar to that shown in " Bunty." On the Sabbath Day he, like others, went to
church in their best clothes, and as soon as they reached home had to change those for their old. He dared not look out of the window or play. "It might not be pleasant," Mr. Campbell says, " but when a young man is growing up he feels the benefit of discipline. It keeps him out of a lot of mischief." Mr. Campbell, as a light comedian and dancer, was for years playing in vaudeville all
over Scotland and England, before he joined Mr. Graham Moffatt's company, which arrived here three years since, come next May. The standard of the work here, he says, is not as high as at home, but it is more severe just for the reason that with the limited show towns in Australia, a
new programme has to be fixed up each week. After touring throughout this country and seeing a good deal of bush life, with the " Bunty" company, hie joined the Branscombe forces, and is now with the Pink Dandies at St. Kilda. The class of work which the Dandies do, he likes. It is a form of entertainment, he points out, a little above vaudeville, and there is no need to broaden the effects,
and nothing can be more enjoyable in such a climate as this than to sit in an open theatre with a light show of that class going on. As for himself, he is quite happy here. " I am on my own," he says, " I have no one depending on me. I can go where I like, and do the work I like. Why should I not be happy and enjoy the country?"

[loobylooayr]

John Campbell obviously had a strict Presbyterian upbringing by the sound of it! And yet he became a ' light comedian and dancer'. Amazing.
Is he a relative of Christina Campbell, the lady who is the subject of your thread?

 

[TropiConsul]

Christina was the child of his father's younger brother.  The brother's seem to have remained closely attached throughout their lives.  The younger brother was witness to the marriage of John Campbell (my great-grandfather) and Henrietta Anderson.  He was also the informant on my great-grandfather's death certificate.  My great-grandfather was a journeyman baker and his brother is described as an iron-turner and engine fitter.