Lily, with her twin brother Victor, were the 9th and 10th children of John and May Mckenzie. The twins were born in Dundee on the 19th April 1912. Lily died, I believe as a result of cancer, on 16 February 1966 and was buried in Dundee.
I only have two memories of Aunty Lily. As I was only 6 years of age when she died so I do not remember much about her. My first memory was of us having a meal, probably a Sunday lunch, at the Town House. My brothers had secretly mixed salt with the sugar in the sugar bowl. Tea was served after the meal. Everyone was sitting around the table, enjoying each other's company, when Aunty Lily was the first to taste the tea! One can only imagine the reaction!!!
My other memory was of her funeral. I was not allowed to attend, as I was considered too young. I spent the time with Aunty Ursula Klingenberg at Victoria Tea Room, who kindly tried to explain what a funeral was. My parents took me to see the grave a few days later.
My brother Colin, has sent me this memory of Aunty Lily:
I only knew this Aunt for a few short years when I was young. She was a grand old lady and I still remember her teaching me at Sunday School.
One of the things she was very strict about was measuring the rain. Her father had kept rain fall records at the town house in Dundee, since he built it. One hot summer afternoon there was a very brief thunder storm. Only a few drops fell. One of my sisters and I thought we could help the storm, so we added some ice blocks to the rain gauge. Along came Aunty Lily to measure the rain and we disappeared. All we heard her say was "so little rain and I measured over two inches"
I never owned up for doing this. I know that if I had, she would have instructed me to go to the back of the yard and cut a quince stick so that she could dust my pants for me.
It would seem that this was an Aunt on whom one could pull a few pranks, as long as one did not get caught!
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