Daniel Francis: Biography of a Beaverhill Lake homesteader in late 1800s, by grandson Jack Francis

I was raised and schooled at Tofield, Alberta, on a mixed farm east of Tofield on the south shore of Beaverhill Lake. This farm was next to my grandfather’s homestead of 1898.


Grandfather, Daniel Francis, came from England as a two year old lad to Stratford, Ontario; raised there, schooled there, and following graduating from the University of Ontario in teachers education, taught school in Ontario. Then moved with a family of four children to a homestead at Estevan, Saskatchewan. Tough times farming in Saskatchewan, he accepted a teaching assignment at Edmonton, January 1, 1895, to teach at a school on the west side of Beaverhill Lake, and in 1898 moved to a homestead on the south shore of Beaverhill Lake. Also taught school in Tofield.


There Grandfather raised a family of nine children, including my father, Jim James Francis who after homesteading and serving time in the army in Word War I, returned to the Tofield area next to his father’s farm, and married Louise Skinner from Ontario and raised a family of six; 5 boys and 1 girl. I (Jack), stayed with the family farm until 1949. At the time, accepted a position at the University farm, as Swine Herdsman, and I worked with the Edmonton Research Station until my retirement in 1992.