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Magda Green Books
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The original ‘Magda Green’ was my three-greats-grandmother, Magdalene Greenfield. She was born Magdalene Spring at Abercorn, Linlithgowshire in 1783, the eldest child of Elizabeth Gifford and James Spring who was for sixty years head forester to the Earls of Hopetoun. She died in the village of Newton in 1854.
Magda’s maternal grandmother was called Magdalene Granger and her grandmother yet another Magdalene. The coincidence of the name is a story in itself. There have been many attempts by students of alternative histories to link its biblical bearer to the Templar movement . Whatever the truth of that, the district where Magda - and several of my ancestors - grew up is awash with Templar lore. The Grangers came from a village called Kirkliston, once known as Temple Liston.
Magda married John Greenfield in 1809. They had five children including John Jr., my great-great-grandfather, who would became a master builder in Leith, Edinburgh. John Jr and his wife Marion had a large family.
Their eldest daughter, also christened Magdalene, was born in 1856. After finishing her schooling, she went into service in the hotel trade and in mid 1880, became pregnant by a hotel keeper in Kelso in the border country.
In an age when such things often resulted in destitution, it was fortunate that John Greenfield was a man of understanding. Magda returned to his house in Leith to have the baby. Through her father’s influence and possibly with the help of her eldest brother, then a commercial traveller, the infant - a boy - was formally adopted by a couple from the Highlands who had been unable to have children of their own. The child, as yet unweaned, and Magda went north with the new parents, and she took up residence with the family.
Three years later, in 1884, the young wife died of a brain tumour. Magda, who - I suppose - had become fond of the husband, married him in 1887 at her brother’s home in Edinburgh, and thus became stepmother to her own child. In 1888, she had a daughter and shortly afterwards the family moved to Glasgow.
Magda Greenfield lived to the ripe old age of 80. In later life, according to the testimony of those who knew her, she was a lively lady who loved parties. She died in 1937, just before the outbreak of the Second World War. Her story captured my interest for its simplicity and humanity, and it struck me how different things might have been if she had been forced to go down another path , the one that led so many women to the so-called Magdalene Laundries.
The James Spring memorial stone in Abercorn Churchyard.
The inscription reads as follows:
The Shore, Leith, Edinburgh
My great-grandfather had a grocers shop at number 65.
Let there be no compulsion in religion.
(Koran)
(Koran)