GENERATION 6 - ISABEL QUINE

Isabel Quine is remembered with affection within the family.She was well-educated, partly at East Baldwin, then at Albany Road, and finally at Park Road. Isabel sat her Honours examinations conducted externally by Cambridge University in 1908, and gained Second-Class Honours in eight subjects, including Theoretical and Practical Chemistry, and Heat Electricity and Magnetism.

It was hoped and expected in families like the Quines that when the time came, at least one of the family would be prepared to look after the parents when they were aged, although in practice this lot very often fell to the youngest daughter. When the time came in 1925, with both Amy and Gertie married in Kirk Michael, and Eddie courting Margaret Killip, Isabel to all appearances accepted her responsibilities cheerfully, moving to Douglas with her parents when her elder brother married.. She was no shrinking violet and it seems likely that she had suitors from time to time, although nothing further developed. Isabel retained her outside interests, having a knowledge of things Manx, and belonged to the IOM Natural History and Antiquarian Society, although she did not speak Manx Gaelic. She enjoyed classical music, learning to play the piano, and competing in the Guild. She played the organ at East Baldwin Chapel, and later taught in the Sunday School at Rosemount. After her mother’s death in 1937 she bought out her two sisters’ interests in the house at Cronkbourne Road, and lived there for the rest of her life. During the Second World War, Isabel enjoyed her only experiences of “paid work”; first for the Territorial Association , and from November 1943 for Food Control in the embryonic Manx civil service in Government Office. Her salary was £2 per week plus a bonus.

The rents from 91 Strand Street, which her mother had left her for life, coupled with an investment income, and supplemented by modest rents charged to successive lady lodgers, enabled her to maintain her mode of living. The rents of 91 Strand Street had continued to grow in value, and by 1962 Isabel was drawing an annual income of £400 from the property, now used as an amusement arcade - Funland - by the tenants, the Jewish Petter family. It was two years later that the property was sold to the sitting tenants for £9,000, ending almost 160 years of family ownership. Since that time the property has been re-developed twice, now forming a central portion of the Strand Shopping Centre site. A contact with the Petters was maintained, and Isabel attended a family wedding in London some years later.

Isabel had excellent taste, both in clothing and in furnishings, and was a keen gardener. Her home was a welcome port-of -call for all the out-of-town members of the family.

Up until her final illness she remained active. and took occasional holidays abroad. She enjoyed hiking out to East Baldwin, to visit her nephew and family, and would join her sisters’ and later nephews’ and niece’s families at for special occasions. Mrs. Snowdrop (‘Snowie”) Kissack became a friend and companion, as well as a lodger, and continued to live at ‘Arderry’ Cronkbourne Road after Isabel’s death in 1972 under generous terms provided for in her will. After Snowie's death, Arderry was sold to the present owners, the proceeds being left in the same manner as those of Ardwyn.

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