Unknown Soldier , Unknown Soldier

Joseph Ponsonby was born 24 Feb 1868 in Dumbarton, Scotland, the youngest of ten children of John & Helen (Docherty) Ponsonby. John Ponsonby had immigrated with a brother from Co Donegal, Ireland in the early 1840s, and Helen Docherty moved from Co Derry, Ireland with her parents and some of her sibling about the same time. He was the youngest brother of my great-grandmother, Jane Ponsonby, who had married Charles MacKenzie in Dumbarton in 1874. Life wasn't easy for the immigrant families. Joseph was one of six sons. On 28 Nov 1895 he married Sarah Cables, daughter of Joseph Cables & Margaret O'Neil in Dumbarton, at the Chapel Alexandria, after publication according to the forms of the Catholic Church. Joseph and Sarah had three children that we know of, Mary was born 1896, Mark Anthony (who was named after Joseph's eldest brother) was born 1898, and died in 1900, and Ellen was born in 1900, all born in Dumbarton. In the 1901 Census of Dumbarton, they were living at #3 Overburn Terrace (p. 28, 111). Joseph was age 29 yrs, a carter-contractor, and employer. With him were his wife Sarah, their daughters Mary (age 4) and Ellen (age 8 mos), and also Joseph's widowed mother, Ellen (Docherty) Ponsonby, age 75 yrs. I had heard some time back, from an elderly cousin, that "Uncle Joe" had been in the Boer War. However she never mentioned that he never returned, that he died in South Africa. A chance encounter on the internet with a descendant of Sarah Cables got us to looking into this particular family. We only discovered in Jan/06 that Joseph had been a member of the 3rd Battalion, Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, who had gone to South Africa abt Feb 1902, and the war ended about August of that year. It was such a short time that he was there, to die far from home on 15 May 1902 at Deelfontein, South Africa. We don't know much more of Sarah, his widow, and their two young daughters, until March 1907, when Sarah died, age 36 yrs. The death record states: ""On March 4, 1907 at 1 p.m. at 20 William Street, Dumbarton, Sarah Ponsonby, farm worker, widow of Joseph Ponsonby, Private, 3rd Battalion, Argyle & Sutherland Highlanders, age 36 yrs, daughter of Joseph Cables miner, dec. and Mary Cables m.s. Arneil, dec. Cause of death phthisis 6 mos, certified by R. Allan LRCP surgeon; death reported by Catherine Gowan, sister, of 9 Grace Street, Anderston, Glasgow. Registered Mar 5, 1907 at Dumbarton." (Dea