Involved
Citizen
R. E. Mann dies
A man who was proud of his
American heritage and just as proud to be a Canadian citizen, R.
Edward Mann of Simcoe, died Thursday at War Memorial Hospital,
Southern Pines, North Carolina. He was 85.
Well known through the
district and in the tobacco, insurance and real estate circles,
Ed, as he was known, had a host of friends and associates over the
years since he first came to Canada in 1930.
In his native Surry County,
North Carolina, he was an agent for the Home Insurance Company,
but in those Depression years he looked for better things.
He was the hired man and
curer for Vittoria Plantations on the farm just south of the
Halfway Corner. During the winter months from 1931 to 1933, he was
a leaf inspector with Canadian Leaf Tobacco in Chatham and
Tillsonburg.
By 1938 he was managing
director of Vittoria Plantations until the farms were sold in
1946. In 1935 he bought one of the farms and named it Maple Haven,
Woodhouse Gore, living there until selling it in 1970.
Keenly interested in
different phases of the tobacco industry he became a founding
director of what was the Tobac Curing Systems in 1937, remaining
as a vice-president until 1983.
He helped organize the
tobacco exhibit and the tobacco king competition at the Norfolk
County Fair. A director for many years with the Norfolk
Agricultural Society which he joined in 1936, he later became
president and life member.
During the Second War World
he helped coordinate tobacco farm labor involving tobacco curers
from the south who came north every year during the Ontario
harvest.
On the home farm in
addition to tobacco he grew peppers, okra, tomatoes, corn and
raised dairy and beef cattle. Through his efforts young people
from the cities were brought to the area in the summer to help in
the harvest and thus the word, Farmerettes.
By 1947 it was time to
branch out into the insurance and real estate business and thus
was born R. E. Mann Agencies. He was the founder and still
president. He became a charter member and presently honorary life
member of the Simcoe and District Real Estate Board.
A community minded citizen,
who always remembered the kindnesses shown the family when they
first came to this area, he thrived on the private enterprise
system and often chortled when he read or heard of those who
complained that things were not going their way. He was always an
optimist.
Another of his interests
was conservation. The fact that the pioneers such as the late
Frank Newman, Ed Zavitz and others of that era never received the
recognition they deserved for what they did in saving this county
from the "blow sand" days, remained an irritant.
He and the late William
Pelton of Lynedoch were the first tobacco adjusters.
He was an honorary life
member of the Insurance Brokers of Ontario; past president of the
Norfolk Chamber of Commerce; member, past president, and just
recently made life member of the Simcoe Lions Club; a 32nd degree
member of the Scottish Rite; a Shriner; and member of Norfolk
Lodge, No. 10, A.F. and A.M.
For more than 35 years he was a trustee at St. James United
Church.
Surviving are his wife, the
former Anne Pierce, whom he married at Cameron, N.C., in 1927;
sons Robert and Ronald, Simcoe; daughter, Mrs. Donald (Betty)
Ivison of Toronto; four grandchildren; and brother
L. C. Mann, High Point, N.C.
Visitation at the Baldock
Funeral Home is Sunday, 2 p.m. to 9 p.m., and Monday,
7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Service is Tuesday at 2
p.m. from St. James United Church, Rev. Carl Zurbrigg will
officiate assisted by Rev. George Leck. Interment Oakwood
Cemetery.
