The Mason's Wife

Walter McWilliam asks his grandmother, Sarah McWilliam where she grew up. She then tells her story, from when she helped her mother, Mary Foulkes, a midwife. Through midwifery she meets her future husband, Robert McWilliam, a stonemason from Scotland. His wife, Agnes, dies after giving birth to their third child; the baby also dies a few days later.

Sarah takes on the role of nanny to Robert's two children and finally marries him, giving him four more children. The family move up to Scotland, where two more children are born. Robert dies after getting into a fight defending his daughter Mary's honour, leaving a devastated Sarah in Scotland.

The story ends with the parish of Robert's birth, Kirkmaiden, paying Lesmahagow to keep Sarah off the streets.





Julie Isard-Brown was born in 1955 in Northampton. She went to school at St. James VP School and Northampton School for Girls. She is married and has two grown-up daughters. She works as accounts assistant at Corus Hotels Group, Berkhamsted, Herts and lives in Croxley Green, Herts. Her favourite activities are genealogy, acting and attending conventions for Star Trek and Star Gate. Through her passion for genealogy she has reunited adoptees with their birth families. The story 'The Mason’s Wife’ is her first book.

Julie is the youngest child of working class parents. She was the first one in her family to get a Grammar school education. She wanted to learn more about her ancestry and after many years of research she wrote her first book The Mason’s Wife.