Richard Harpin Beaumont

Richard was born in Glen Williams on September 22, 1918 and was the eldest son of William Harpin Beaumont and Mary Louisa Sharp. It is presumed that Richard attended elementary school in Glen Williams and high school in Georgetown as did his younger brother Lawrence (Killed in Action WW2). Richard had two half-brothers and three half-sisters (Jack, Jean, Harpin, Edith and Isabel) from his father’s second marriage. Richard and his family lived at 563 Main St. Glen Williams and attended St. Alban’s Anglican Church.

Richard was still training with the Airforce in Canada at the time of his brother’s death, having enlisted in Toronto with ground crew initially. By 1945, Richard was training as a pilot at Gimli, Manitoba. An employee of at the Canadian Bank of Commerce at the time of his enlistment, he trained at Mountain View Calgary, Edmonton and British Columbia. He was an instructor for some months at Calgary and B.C.

Postwar, Dick continued his studies to complete his Chartered Accountancy Designation, first working for Thorne Riddell in Toronto and then in Sault Ste. Marie in 1952. In 1958, along with other investors, Dick purchased Lyons Fuels Hardware and Supplies. Dick operated both Lyons Hardware and Lyons ReadyMix until his retirement in 1992. Always community minded, Dick was active on many local, provincial and Canadian boards, including the United Way, Kiwanis, St. Andrew’s Church, The Conservative Party of Canada, the Sault Ste. Marie Construction Association and Homebuilders Association, The Davey Home and SSM Golf Club.

Richard died on May 28, 2012 and is interred Sault Ste. Marie. His wife Agnes predeceased him in 2005.

Truly a Canadian Hero. His story lives on. Information obtained from Ancestry.ca and Newspapers.com