Friends remembered: Jessie Spittal

friends remembered
Jessie Spittal, left, on a trip to Pennsylvania

Jessie Spittal, 76, left, of Dunfermline, Scotland, died Oct. 10, 2015.  She became a trustee of the Carnegie Dunfermline and Hero Fund Trusts in 1974 and retired from them in 2005.  Her commitment to both was unswerving, and she was involved in all areas of their work, serving as Hero Fund convener from 1983 to 1989 and going on to become the trusts’ vice chair (1989-92) and chair (1992-95).  She represented the trusts in Pittsburgh in 2004, when the Commission held its centennial observance, and in 2007 she visited again, meeting up with her new friends at the Hero Fund.  The photo was taken during the latter visit, when she and Gustaf Taube, then chair of Carnegiestiftelsen, Carnegie’s hero fund in Sweden, were a part of a tour of the site of the 1904 Harwick coal mine explosion.  Andrew Carnegie was inspired to establish his hero funds by the sacrificial actions of two men who died in rescue attempts in the Harwick mine.