Soccer was the sport that kept Cecil in Kimberley after he first arrived here. He was born in Northumberland, England in 1897 where mining provided the work and soccer the entertainment.
His father worked in three different mines and became the manager of one at Four Stones. When stomach trouble began to bother him, his doctor suggested that a sea voyage might help him. Two of his daughters had immigrated to Canada with their husbands, so in 1915 the family decided to go to Canada also. They settled on some land at Albion Ridge, Alberta, north of Lethbridge, and later near Rimby, northwest of Lacombe.
Cecil went to work in a men's furnishing store in Fort MacLeod. When he turned eighteen in 1915, he joined the 113th Lethbridge Highlanders and went overseas for three years. Cecil's section of the unit was drafted to the 16th Canadian Scottish Battalion and fought in the battle of Vimy Ridge. He was wounded twice in one day, a bullet entered his left jaw and tore a part of his neck away, but he kept fighting until a piece of shrapnel hit his leg and put him out of action.
It was 1919 before he sailed home on the Aquitania and went mining in Coalhurst, Alberta. He played soccer with the Coalhurst team and also for the Lethbridge Miners.
Cecil's sister and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Ernie Nesbitt were living in Kimberley at this time and as the Coalhurst mine only worked a few months a year, Cecil came to visit his sister on a May 24th weekend to watch a soccer game. As a result of this visit he and his father got work at the Mine and moved to Happy Valley in 1925.
Cecil went back to Lethbridge to marry Kathleen (Pat) Goodrick and brought her back to Kimberley to live. She too, was born in England, at Harrogate, Yorkshire, and came to Canada with her parents when she was just twelve years old.
Cecil's father passed away in 1928 and his mother in 1942 at the age of seventy-nine.
Cecil's first job with the Company was on the paint crew. This lasted almost a year and then he was transferred to the timber gang underground with Harry Parsons as his boss. When Harry retired, Cecil became the timber boss and then timber supervisor, until his retirement.
He played soccer for the Tunnel team for about ten years. While playing for the Lethbridge team, his wound gave him a lot of pain until he was sent to the Col. Belcher Hospital in Calgary and had several bone fragments removed. He used to hunt and both he and his wife, Pat, have always enjoyed fishing.
Cecil was one of the first members of the Kimberley Trap and Skeet Club when the members held their shoots on the old soccer field between the Top Mine and the Townsite, around 1928. With Storm Maartman, Ray Armstrong, Davey Gold and Jim Handley, to name a few. Cecil took part in the building of the trap and skeet grounds just above Marysville.
The Pearsons have raised five children in Kimberley, four boys and a girl: Melvin, Allan, Collin, Larry and Jean. Melvin is married with two daughters and works for the Alberta Telephone Company in Calgary. Allan attended the Calgary Technical School and worked for an oil company before moving back to Kimberley and is presently working for the Company in the Job Method Study Department. He is married and they have three daughters, Teresa, Vicky and Shelley.
Collin lives in New Zealand and has four boys. Larry lives in Surrey, B.C. and they have two boys. Daughter, Jean, also lives in Surrey, and is married and has two girls and a boy.
Pat and Cecil have fifteen grandchildren and eight great grandchildren. In 1974 they moved from Happy Valley to the Kimbrook Apartments. Cecil keeps busy with numerous hobbies such as making macrame hangers for plants and cushions, etc. Pat crochets and tends to her many plants. They have found the Com- pany good to work for and have never been sorry they came to Kimberley and plan on staying here.
