Frank Chapman Scargill, born in Beaufort, Ireland in 1906, lived as a bachelor on our property in Steveston, British Columbia, Canada, all of his life in our country. He was like a beloved member of our family. He first arrived in about 1938 or 1939 and became a farm hand for my grandfather, Robert Gilbert Ransford. He often told me when I was young that he was from a fairly wealthy family in Co. Kerry Ireland. As our family’s farm began to dwindle in size to make way for suburban development outside of Vancouver, Frank went to work for the City of Richmond in their sanitation department, working on the trucks collecting solid waste. He lived in an apartment in my great-grandfather’s old house. When he retired, he worked around our estate, tending to the gardens and lawns. He died tragically on April 7, 1978, after returning home quite intoxicated and falling down the stairway. Frank also had a brother, Theo, arrive in this area in the 1950s. He lived not far from Frank, but they only saw each other rarely. Theo became a commercial fisherman, fishing the Fraser River for salmon. He lived on the Leslie family farm. I believe he died in 1984.
