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9. Murray McLennan with a rifle. C1905

Murray left the farm during the mid-twenties and went to board in Vancouver, with his sister, Anne Stewart. He worked in housing construction with his brother-in-law, Alfred Williams.

On a visit to his home on Salt Spring he met Dorothy Dewar, the teacher at Beaver Point School. They married in the bride’s home in Victoria, on October 16, 1929 and moved to Vancouver where they lived in a house that Murray and Alf had built that same year.

When his father died in 1932, Murray, Dorothy and infant, Mary, moved back to Salt Spring to take over the farm and care for his mother, Elizabeth. By 1936, the depression had badly eroded farm income, so Murray and family moved to Duncan and Elizabeth to Maggie Lee’s home in the Burgoyne Valley. Murray’s 200 acres of Glenshiel Farm was rented to various tenants and the timber sold to logging companies, until it was sold in 1944 and the proceeds invested in a small acreage in Deep Cove on the Saanich Peninsula.

Over the years, Murray worked at many jobs, truck driving, house construction and farming and prided himself that his family always sat down to ‘a good table.’

He was a well-liked person with many close friends and a loving family. The welcome mat was always out.

In 1979, Murray and Dorothy celebrated fifty years of happy marriage with a large reception and dinner at the Princess Mary in Victoria. He died of prostate cancer the following July 2, 1980 and is buried in the Burgoyne United Churchyard with his parents and other family members