The Frank West Hall on Chaster Road was named for the first Area E director Frank West, who served in that role from 1966 to 1976. Frank was a man with a great sense of humour, and when I first met him in the mid-1980s, although in his 70s, he was still very active in the community. He was welcoming to me as a newcomer and seemed a man eager to get things done. He always had a twinkle in his eye.
Frank, his wife Mary-anne West and their two children moved to Port Mellon in 1951 when Frank was hired as an accountant/manager at the mill. After the road was paved in 1957, the family of six (a third daughter who had been born at Port Mellon, and a grandfather) moved to what is now known as Elphinstone.
I had the privilege of interviewing two of Frank’s daughters in the family home that Fran Heppell still lives in off Gower Point Road. Fran’s sister Christa Morrison was born at Port Mellon and told me that quite a few were born there in those days. Doc Inglis was the attending physician (actually the only physician on the Coast at that time).
Frank West was born in 1911 (died in 2006) in Germany as Kurt Otto Heinsheimer, but changed his name when he joined the British army. When the Second World War broke out, Frank was living in England, where he was interned and then served in the Pioneer Corps and Military Intelligence where his fluency in German proved very helpful. According to his daughters Fran and Christa, Frank never spoke of the work he did since he was sworn to an oath of secrecy that he kept to his dying day.
Frank was an educated, middle-class German, but because his father was Jewish, most of his relatives moved out of Germany before the war and left everything behind. Frank was no stranger to manual labour, of which he did a lot during his time in England helping the war effort. Fran and Christa tell of a time when some labourers were struggling to lay railway ties at Port Mellon and Frank noticed they needed help. Imagine their surprise when the mill’s accountant in his white shirt and tie came out to show them how to do it!
When the SCRD was formed in 1966, Area directors were initially appointed and then faced elections in December 1967. Frank and Cliff Gilker, both involved in trying to establish rural water and garbage services, were appointed as directors for Elphinstone and Roberts Creek respectively. Frank went on to be voted in several more terms. Fran remembers him initially working out of a tiny office where the Mosaic Market is now. Frank loved his new country of Canada, and the spirit of serving the community was alive and well in him and his wife Maryanne (more on her in future columns). Daughters Fran and Christa carry on the tradition: Fran volunteers for Gibsons Area Community Schools and Christenson Village, and Christa is active in the SPCA and Community Television.
If you have Elphinstone news to report, please let me know at elphin@coastreporter.net before 5 p.m. on Sunday.
