Franklin Westcott

Franklin Westcott was the husband of Molly Westcott, father of Dovie and father-in-law of Jarvis Morrow.

Early life
Franklin Westcott was born in late 1830s or early 1840s in Summerside to Mr. and Mrs. Westcott. Mrs. Prouty told her his yelps when he was born passed anything she ever heard.

He raised in Summerside and there he met Mollie, his future wife and the prettiest girl in Summerside. They fell in love with each other.

"Mollie was pretty... prettier than Sibyl. Such a pink-and-white skin... such golden-brown hair... such dewy blue eyes! She was the prettiest woman in Summerside."

- Franklin about his wife to Anne Shirley.

Marriage with Mollie
Frank and Mollie probably in 1869. Year after, Mollie gave birth to their only child, Sybil. Everyone called her Dovie, but Franklin didn't. They lived in a big, old-fashioned house named Elmcroft.

People in Summerside gossiped him that he bullied her to death but it wasn't true. Frank loved his wife.

"I ruled my household as a man should but not tyrannically. Oh, of course, I had a spell of temper now and then, but Mollie didn't mind them after she got used to them. Besides, I always gave her a ring or a necklace or some such gaud after I calmed down. There wasn't a woman in Summerside had more nice jewelry."

- Franklin to Anne Shirley.

One day, Miss Prouty saw him as he threw Milton's poems out of the window over the fence into George Clarke's lily pond.

"Oh, that! It wasn't Milton's poems... it was Tennyson's. I reverence Milton but I can't abide Alfred. He's too sickly sweet. Those last two lines of Enoch Arden made me so mad one night, I did fire the book through the window. But I picked it up the next day for the sake of the Bugle Song. I'd forgive anybody anything for that. It didn't go into George Clarke's lily pond - that was old Prouty's embroidery."

- Frank Westcott

Dovie's wedding
Frank picked Jarvis Morrow out for Dovie when they were kids. Soon as the other boys began taking notice of her, he shooed them off didn't allowed Dovie to have any beaus.

That gave Jarvis his first notion of her. When he began to pay her attention, Frank forbade him the house and told Dovie there was to be no more running round with that fellow. But Dovie and Jarvis fell in love.

"I knew the Morrows root and branch. They're a good family, but the men don't want things they can get easily. And they're determined to get a thing when they're told they can't. In Jarvis' case I knew exactly what would happen. Sibyl would fall head over heels in love with him... and he'd be tired of her in no time. I knew he wouldn't keep on wanting her if she was too easy to get."

- Frank about Jarvis Morrow.

In November, Franklin was gone in Charlottetown, Jarvis wit.h Anne's help organized secred wedding at Jarvis's sister's house. The next day, Anne came to Elmcroft to say him about Dovie's wedding and was surprised with his reaction.

Etymology
Franklin is English given name and means Free Landowner.

Appearance

 * Anne of Windy Poplars (first appearance)