27 .. . Bobs West

In December, 1899, Field Marshall Frederick Roberts took over com— mand of the British forces in England’s war against the South African Boers. Less than afortnight later, in Ship Harbour, Nova Scotia, Rev. Thomas Frederick West and Bertha Lon gard patrioticall y gave their new son the General’s name. Roberts West, or Bobs as he is known, received his second name from another man his parents repected — the minister in Belfast, a schoolmate of his father.

Bobs and his wife Alice Butcher live today in a trailer in Mount Buchanan, surrounded by furniture and articles they retained after the sale of their farm on Halliday’s Wharf Road. He is considered by many the champion storyteller in the district and needs little encouragement if he has an eager audience.

I had a brother and a sister older than myself. And my father was

preaching in Ship Harbour, Nova Scotia, when he took sick and died rather suddenly; stomach trouble of some kind. I was only 10 months old.

My mother come back to the Island to live with her people for a short time and bought a place just below them. So that’s where I was brought up, in this Scotch settlement of Belfast.

Family Circle

Oh dear. Well, my great—great—grandfather George West settled in York, Prince Edward Island. My father was one of the youngest of a family of eight or nine. He went to college and he taught school in Eldon. That’s where he met my mother — Longard, Bertha Longard. After teaching school he went to university and entered the ministry. And he joined the

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