Through My Grandfathers Eyes

A Memory of Beith.

My grandfather, James Cunningham Smith,  was a native of Beith, born in January, 1888,  who came to San Francisco just three weeks before the earthquake and fire of April 17, 1906 that nearly destroyed the entire city.
My knowledge and love of Beith comes from  the fortnightly editions of the Beith Supplement that regularly arrived at my grandfather's home in San Francisco his often speaking fondly of his  hometown. He would reminisce of his beloved sport 'football', or soccer as we in America know it, the afternoons indoors spent playing cribbage when the weather was too cold and wet for outside sports, and it seemed to me, as we sat there playing our own cribbage match, that it was an enchanted land that I hoped some day I could visit. He never became a citizen of the U.S. His heart was left there in Beith and I suppose, because of his fond recollections, a part of mine has preceded me  there and remains to this day.  Maybe I'll be able to bring my own grandson, Timothy, "home" with me some time, some day, if his mother ever gives me the permission.

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