Biography of Edward S Atkinson, by his grandson Rick Atkinson June 2002.

Pa wasn't a very large man, about 5'7", but was strong as a bull with lipid blue eyes and gray hair. He always chewed tobacco and smoked Camels or Pall Malls. As a youth, he worked in the coalmines in Spring Hill NS. In his teens he actually lost 1-2 toes in a mining accident when a coal car ran over his foot. He played the large drum in the ceremonial Black Watch Scots Highlander bagpipe band in Stellerton, Nova Scotia.

He immigrated to Belmont MA, USA with family during the depression in the 1930s after the mines ran out in Spring Hill NS.

Pa was a very good finish carpenter and worked at this and as a laborer building houses. As a side note, the Atkinson and McKinnon families knew each other throughout the years. Pa Atkinson may have worked on buildings for Pa McKinnon. At one time the McKinnons lived on Trobridge Street in Belmont. Felida McKinnon went to Belmont High and dated my father and Phyllis Keith was also Dad's classmate at Belmont High.

In the 1930's, Pa played the banjo with my Dad on the fiddle playing Down East music at local dance halls and the French Club in Waltham.

After the war, Pa always worked with his son Frederick McIntosh Atkinson.

After he retired, Pa opened a saw sharpening business in the barn at 7 Maple Terrace, Belmont, MA. His brother Harvey used to walk over from his Doctors office in Waverley Square several times a week at lunch times and they would swap jokes like little kids, each giggling more than the other. Pa had a quick wit, a twinkle in his eye and loved to tell a joke and told many funny stories about himself.

Pa drove a pink Rambler that he named "Walter" and a Black Rambler but they never seemed to go over 10 miles an hour, no matter where he went. He said many people waved to him but it may have been with one finger.

I learned to drive when I was 9 years old in Pa's 1950 Buick Road Master, driving up and down the driveway, circling trees etc.

Pa was a Member of the Waverly Order of The Odd Fellows. He was a Congregationalist and used to go to church to hear his brother Harvey preach. Harvey was a deacon at the church.

Pa died of emphysema after a prostate operation.

My brother Roddy was his favorite until Roddy punched him in the nose one night because Pa was snoring!