The Becketts were near neighbours of ours for many years. They came from Aughton, near Liverpool and lived for awhile in Spokane, before coming to Canada and settling on a homestead, SE17-54-4-W5 in the Darwell area around 1910.
They had two children, a boy, Grant Okel Norton Beckett who never married. He served with the North Strathcona Horse in World War I, and after his discharge was with the Royal North West Mounted Police for a short period. Later while in Edmonton he served as a mailman.
Their daughter Hilda married a Mr. Arthur Field and they had no children. The family are all deceased.
We never knew if Mr. Beckett was a ship captain, but by his stories he had served many years at sea. He was a medical doctor but didn't practice as he couldn't stand the sight of blood.
They had lived in Spain for awhile before returning to England and from there to the States and then to Canada.
They found life on the homestead very hard and Mrs. Beckett was quite ill for some time, so they moved to Edmonton, where Mr. Beckett started a furniture factory which didn't pay off.
Mrs. Beckett was from a large aristocrat family (but I can't remember his name) near Liverpool.
Mrs. Beckett received money from this estate for as long as she lived and then Norton did till his passing.
They moved back to their homestead in 1931 where Mr. Beckett and Norton put a large area in strawberries, but they didn't make anything off them. They were very nice people but never cut out to be farmers.
Norton would study all the information he could obtain on any subject he was interested in at the time until he was well qualified in it, then he would drop it and go on to something else. He was also a wonderful portrait artist though he only worked by pen and pencil. He could also do very interesting cartoons, finishing them to the finest detail. While quite young, he made a phonograph that ran with a pail of scrap metal. Later he spent many years making a 300 pipe organ, which I believe is in the museum now. He made all the pipes with paper and some special glue.
Norton spent many months making a sawmill which operated by the horse going around in a circle. It did saw lumber, but never fast enough to be of any value.