With letters of introduction from Caledonian Club of San Francisco's Past Chiefs, Jimmy Hamilton and Jack Scott, Burns Federation Past president and currant C.E.O., John Ingles, welcomes Bob and Grace into their offices at The Dick Institute. His gift of the Burns Chronicle(featured on the Kilmarnock page) was reciprocated with a copy of Raymond Foye's book, The Unknown Poe. Retired Chief Constable of Glasgow Police, John Ingles, arranged a meeting for the next day with the Steward of Irvine Burns Club, David Smith.

The cover of just one of the many Local History books published by Frank Beattie in which he details facts he knew of Poe's childhood in Kilmarnock. He is a Staff Reporter for the local newspaper, Kilmarnock Standard. Brill and Beattie are seen, below, discussing the research project.

After our first trip to Ayrshire in search of Poe's connections, while performing my daily jog, a one-legged raven happened upon the levee that separates the Pacifica Golf Course from the beach on the other side. I resolved to take some food with me the next day, and if it reappeared, I would feed it. Seven years later I had three seperate flocks (communitees) of ravens numbering about seventy birds in all. Here I am seen on a typical period of rest during which I fed the birds, small cubes of animal fat that I "nuked' for about a minute. The birds can only swallow. After a few years they knew me, and ate out of my hand every day after they began. I did this in remembrance of Edgar Allan Poe, and to obtain some mental health relief from the press of the millions of incomming immigrants from around the world.  The San Francisco Chronicle published an article of interest of the sudden appearance of ravens in Pacifica! In 2002 I sold out and moved to The Big Island of Hawaii to finish our book. Poe Family Tree at West Point Library Archives    Facsimile of and from the Poe Family Genealogy in the  West Point  Library Archives, as used by Hervey Allen in his Israfel.  Courtesy Mr. Al Aimone, Senior Library Archivist.  Notice the compiler drew a line from the two “Gen” David, and the one below him; it was duplication within the tree.  The origin of David Poe is in the upper left hand of the page, and states:  Fenwick Parish, Ayrshire, Scotland.  Our correspondent, Frank Beattie lived there.  But why did the Allans, Galts, and Poes of Ayrshire migrate to Ireland?  All of this is recorded in our book.

In Chapter 4 his book, Proud Kilmarnock, local historian, Frank Beattie, seen above, discusses our first meeting with him during our 1997 visit. One observation he made, as a "local," was of my immediately noticing the rooks everywhere in Kilmarnock, as do not exist in Perthshire. Since then, Mr. Beattie has been crucial to our ongoing research in the Ayrshire area. He had edited much of our manuscript, and corrected our erros about interpretation of facts of the local area. He is responsble for lobbying the Kilmarnock Historical Society on our behalf for the commemorative plaque that documents Poe's aunt and uncle Fowlds' house in Kilmarnock, among his other singular finds.~~~