Born in Campbelltown, Scotland in the 1820s, Alexander McEachen grew up on a farm with his parents, Alex and Margaret, one brother and five sisters.Alexander was only a teenager when the potato famine struck Scotland and his family lost everything as the laird's men burnt their home because the rent could not be paid. He feared he may have killed one of these men and boarded a boat to escape only to find himself on a Royal Navy vessel bound for the Canadas.Once in this new land, Alexander travelled across the country working in Quebec, Montreal and the Ottawa Valley Two of his sons then ventured west to what was then the Northwest Territories where they homesteaded near Arcola in what was to become Saskatchewan.When the eldest son died in 1930, his farm was lost to the banks during the Great Depression and the family moved to Regina.