He had to leave his fathers castle, his father was hung in the court yard of the castle for trying to overcome the British rule, he was but a mere sixteen years old but in sprit he was a man. His father’s estate left him some money so even though he would have owned the castle, and been the clan chieftain he got on board a ship and came to America. When he got off of that ship he felt very lonely, he wandered the streets of Seattle wondering about his mother and would the British hang her. He had no trade, but he met a man that took him on as an apprentice sign painter, and he stayed at that trade until he knew it well. Then he opened with the money he had saved his own sign painting shop.

He worked at painting signs for the rest of his life, he had never heard a word of what happened to his Mother although he often thought of her, she was on his mind night and day. Even when he was busy painting signs.

One day a man came into his shop and asked him to paint a sign for his business, it was to say, genealogy surveys. The young man asked the man if he could find out what happened to his Mother. The man said he could for the price of the sign. In just a week the man came back to the shop and told him, your Mother is in a rest home in San Francisco California. The young man was so happy to hear his Mother was still alive and came to America, he traveled from Sacramento to San Francisco to see his Mother, but sadly she did not recognize him. She was to old by then, and time had ruined her memory.

He went back to Sacramento and worked in his sign shop for two years, and then he met a widow woman that had two children. He raised those children well but in the meantime the widow woman and him had three more children.

My father was one of those three. He taught me all of my life to be proud of my Scottish heritage which I have been