SCOTLAND'S oldest woman has died at the age of 109.
Relatives of Clare Dawson, from Burnside in Glasgow, said the centenarian would be missed for her "tremendous strength, tenacity and joie de vivre".
Mrs Dawson, who leaves two daughters, five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, died peacefully at St Margaret of Scotland Hospice in Clydebank, West Dunbartonshire, yesterday.
She was born in the same year as the 1904 Olympics in St Louis, Missouri. The Russo-Japan war also began that year over Manchuria and Korea.
Meanwhile, in Scotland 635 people perished aboard the Danish liner SS Norge after it was shipwrecked off Rockall in the Atlantic and Charles Rennie Mackintosh's magnificent Hill House in Helensburgh was completed. In arts, JM Barrie's Peter Pan had its premiere in London's theatreland.
Mrs Dawson's grandson Edward McGuigan, a trustee of the hospice, said: "St Margaret's Hospice was as attentive to my gran's particular needs as they could have possibly been and we are very grateful for the way they looked after her.
"She had an extremely peaceful, glorious, very holy death and we could not have asked for a more fitting end for her.
"Gran was the matriarch of our family and the one everybody came to when they needed advice or guidance. She had seen everything and knew everything.
"We will miss her terribly for her tremendous strength, tenacity and joie de vivre."
Mrs Dawson, a devout Catholic and avid Celtic fan, had been preparing for her annual family holiday to Spain.
Just over a month ago she began to suffer heart problems and was fitted with a pacemaker at Glasgow's Southern General Hospital. She was believed to be the oldest person in the UK to be fitted with the device.
However, Mrs Dawson failed to respond fully to the treatment and her health deteriorated. She died shortly after 10am yesterday morning.
The youngest of nine children and the widow of a former school teacher, Louis, Mrs Dawson had lived in the parish of St Columbkille's church in Rutherglen since her birth in April 1904. She attended the former Franciscan convent in Charlotte Street and then Notre Dame High School in Dowanhill, Glasgow, and in her later years lived with her daughter Clare and son-in-law Brian.
Her daily activities involved tackling The Herald crossword and she kept up with the football, attending Celtic Park as recently as May of last year to see the squad lift the Scottish Premier League trophy.
She was also the oldest pilgrim travelling to Bellahouston when Pope Benedict XVI made his visit to Glasgow in 2010.
Mr McGuigan added: "The one thing that became my gran's defining feature was that people were drawn to her. She didn't demand love from people but they gave it to her freely, they became fond of her very quickly."
Mrs Dawson became Scotland's oldest person in April last year when Janet Sheed Roberts died at the age of 110.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article