A Mearns woman died just hours before she would have received a message of congratulations from Buckingham Palace to mark her 100th birthday.
Helen Silver Murray passed away just one hour into her landmark date, according to her daughter Kay.
“Her telegram from the Queen arrived later that day,” Kay said. “She never got to see it.”
Mrs Murray, from Stonehaven, raised seven children and worked as an auxiliary nurse before taking up a job at the town’s Station Hotel which she did not retire from until she was 98.
“Mum worked in the kitchen and made sure the place was spick and span, as well as checking the bedrooms,” said Kay, 69.
“She was a wonderful example of a hard-working Scot who lived for her family and her job.
“When she fell and broke her elbow she started to ease up a bit and gave up work.”
Mrs Murray was born on November 23 1915 and was left to bring up her children when her late husband Bob was a prisoner during the Second World War.
He was captured by the Germans in North Africa during a failed bid to kill Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in 1941.
Son Bobby, 77, from Stonehaven, said: “Dad spent much of his war in prison camps in Italy and Austria.
“Mum did not get word about where he was until the middle of 1942 but until then could only carry on hoping he was alive. She had three children to look after and he didn’t return until 1946.
“Nothing fazed her and she coped admirably.”
More than 200 people attended Mrs Murray’s funeral.
Bobby added: “She was the world to us all and others. These were people across the generations who knew and respected her.”
Buckingham Palace now sends out more cards marking 100th birthdays than ever before. Officially the number of people living to 100 in Scotland has grown by nearly four-fifths in a decade.
There were 910 centenarians in Scotland in 2014 a rise of 78% from 510 in 2004, according to the National Records of Scotland.