For a time Tom (DWG -See tree above)was apprenticed to a butcher in Rotherham, being there in 1900. In 1901 he set up his own butcher`s shop at 32 Belle Vue St., Filey. From a letter from Aunt Raper to Harry Marr about a late payment of interest on a loan, I get the impression that she had lent money to Harry for him to set up Tom in business. He married his housekeeper Sarah Watson in 1902. Their first child Thomas Norrison (Norris) was born 1903, Gertrude Florence in 1904, Ivy Waide 1905, Henry Eric 1906, Ronald Watson 1909 and Sarah (Sally) Beatrice 1911. Gertrude and Ivy died of scarlet fever in infancy.
Tom had to abandon his butchery in Filey when he enlisted on 1 January 1917, at the age of 40. He drove trucks in France and appears to have survived unscathed. After being discharged on 23 July 1919 he must soon have decided to emigrate to Canada. From Filey he bought about 50 acres in Ontario. For a few days the family stayed with his wife`s sister in Ampleforth, leaving there on 27 March 1920 for Southampton, sailing in the RMS Grampian (which was uncomfortable and they called her the ‘The Grand Pain’) for St John`s, New Brunswick.
They arrived at Courtlands, Ontario on 7th April 1920, spent a night with Alec Cowan in Langton village, then took over the farm Tom had bought on Hazen Road. In 1922 they took a larger farm of 100 acres 3 miles away to raise cows, pigs, chickens, grain and maize. Another 50 acres were added later. In 1926 he was one of the first to grow tobacco in Ontario. Ronnie died in 1935. Tom, Sarah and their daughter Sally, (who has given me all the facts in this note) moved to a house with 3 acres of land in the hamlet of Wyecombe in 1930. Tom died there in November 1944 and Sarah in March 1955. Both are buried at Evergreen Cemetery, Lynedoch, Ontario. Henry and his wife Alice took over the tobacco farm from Tom, then sold it in 1942. The following year they bought a general farm at Norwich, Ontario. Henry died after 1969, but I regret that I have no date recorded. They had 2 children, David and Kathleen. David is an Analytical Chemist, with a Phd, living in New York State, and is married to Marie Messacar. They have 2 children Robert and Kristal, both married with children. David has 2 grandsons so the Marr name may continue to be propagated in Canada or USA.
In 1922 or 23 Norrison left home for Detroit, somehow entering the United States by stealth, started with one taxi, built it up to a chain of Checker Cabs, dabbled in Real Estate, and prospered before finally retiring to Boynton Beach, Florida, where he married Barbara Dewar in 1970. The ceremony was attended by his sister Sally and her husband Ken and by his cousin Geoffrey Marr. Geoffrey had delivered the Queen Elizabeth to Port Everglades in December 1968, where she lay with an uncertain future until she was bought by a Mr Tung of Hong Kong, who proposed to make her into a cruising university. In 1970 Geoffrey was standing by in Florida to act as consultant to the Commander of a Chinese crew which was to take her to Hong Kong. Norrison had been in the US Army in WWII, and was a Mason. He died on 13th May 1983 and is buried in the same cemetery as his parents.
In 1937 Sally married Kenneth John Wilson, whose family had emigrated from England in the same year as Tom Marr, and his family. Ken`s father had been Chief Engineer at John Browns Steel firm in Sheffield, and wanted to start his own boiler-compound chemical company in Canada. Sally and Ken lived in Toronto while he worked with the Union Carbide Company as an Industrial Chemist. They moved to Stewarttown in 1952, where she ran a general store and he had a job with customs at Malton airport. They finally retired to Tom`s old house at Wyecombe in 1969. They have 3 children, Donald, Philip and Ruth and 7 grandchildren.
