Alexander Brown Marr was my grandfather. I never had the pleasure of knowing him as he died 10 years before I was born. He was born in in Pollokshaws, Renfrew, Scotland on November 25, 1889 to Thomas and Jessie (Brown) Marr . I don’t know a lot about him, beyond what follows. Alex, the youngest of seven children, graduated from from Eastwood Pollok Academy, Eastwood Parish, Glasgow Scotland in May of 1903. At some point, he became a “tenter”, a.k.a. “loom fixer” for a world famous thread manufacturer called J&P Coats.
Alex went on the serve in WW I in The 5th Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders. In the second year of the war, September 28, 1915, he married Agnes Jane Main Ferguson. After the war, he went back to work, and set out to build a family. First born son, Robert was born in 1922, followed by George Harvey Ferguson Marr in 1923.
J&P Coats was well-established as a thread maker in Pawtucket, RI, USA. It was 1923 when his employer approached him about going to America to work in a new thread factory. He left his family in Glasgow, and on on 11 May, 1923 on the ship Cameronia. He arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada in route to US on 19 May, 1923. It is unknown if he took another ship to Boston, or train. In any event, he then began his quest to become an American citizen.
Two years after his arrival in America, he sent for his family. They came to the United States on the S.S. Transylvania, arriving in Boston on, or about 19 September, 1925. The family settled in Pawtucket.
Alex realized his dream of becoming a citizen of the United States on June 27, 1938. He died four months later, October 24, 1938 in Pawtucket, RI.
I wrote a song about my grandfather back in 2006, called Big Land. Have a listen….