Mary Ann Higgins of Union Lodge, Moneyglass turned 100 on 28th November 2020!
She was born near Cloughmills, one of the eight children of Alex and Annie Higgins.
The family moved to Moneyglass in the early 1920s, assisted by some of their Cloughmills neighbours, who helped them negotiate Roguery Hill with livestock and horses and carts. Mary Ann settled in well, attending Gortgill School and has had great lifelong friends in the Boardmans, the Murrays, the McErleans and the McBrides.
She worked hard in the family farm business, keeping house, looking after animals, and caring for her extended family. Mary Ann always had a great head for facts and figures, managing the farm paperwork and VAT returns well into her eighties. If anyone needed to know someone’s in the family circles birthday, they were always told to ‘Go ask your Aunt Nan.’
A great card sharp, she was a regular at the Whist Drives in Moneyglass and later in Ballyscullion Hall.
Many people locally have fond memories of her serving the teas at the old Toome Carnival or coming to the potato field with hot sweet tea in mineral bottles wrapped up in newspaper.
Her nephew John Scullin and late niece Maura Scullin RIP were reared with her and she was like a second mother to them. In fact all her nieces and nephews have very happy memories of being at Union Lodge with Mary Ann, even when she pulled them in to do ‘Tests’ so she could see how they were getting on at school, she was a great believer in the 11+ exams.
A keen knitter, there was always some of Aunt Nans handiwork in your Christmas stocking. She loved her garden and greenhouse and kept the whole family circle well supplied with rhubarb jam.
Now living with her nephew John and his family, she is in good health and good heart, and her family and friends wish her a very happy 100th birthday, with the hope of a good few birthday celebrations still to come.
