I am truly sorry to hear of Reg's passing. Reg was a kind and generous man and a blessing in his friendship with my dear aunt June in her later years. I had the pleasure to visit with Reg at his homes on Cannaught Avenue and on Green Street on number of occassions and enjoyed conversations with him and his friendship.

REGINALD LEMONT MARSHALL
August 26th 1914 – February 22nd 2010
Reginald Lemont Marshall was born at Ash Lawn farm in Central Clarence, Annapolis County Nova Scotia on August 26th, 1914. Uncle Reg was the fourth of  five children of my grandparents,  Eldon and Winnifred.  
 Ash Lawn farm, the community of Clarence and family remained close to Uncle Reg’s heart throughout his entire life. His childhood growing up on the farm was a far different one than what it would be today. Reg grew up with kerosene lamps, milk separators, butter churns and cream cans, virtually no garbage, there were horses for farm power and transport, roads were unplowed in winter and often  impassable after heavy spring rains.  The Baptist church next door was the focus of family and the center of community. Bread was home-made and baked in the wood stove, mattresses were straw ticks, supported by ropes and  boards;  feather ticks covered the bed;  chamber pots and wash basins were used for real.  Home knit mitts, woolen long underwear,  molasses and pork fat sandwiches, coal oil lamps; all were part of daily life for Reg during his early years. Card playing was not allowed and dancing was sinful, at least early on. Prayer meeting was every Wednesday night and Sunday School picnics, ice cream socials, pie socials and box socials were big events.  Reg attended the Central Clarence one room school heated with a pot-belly stove. He used a slate in  learning his times tables and walked to school every day.
Along with his sensitive, caring and considerate nature, Uncle Reg had an inquisitive mind; methodical and logical; always needing to understand how things worked, always thinking ‘outside of the box’ His  43 year  career with Maritime Tel and Tel began as a lineman in Amherst.. 
Someone else has to tell the inside story about how Uncle Reg met Aunt Gladys. But ‘meet’ they did and were married in September 1943 in Parrsboro. We have a picture of the respective families, Dickinsons and Marshalls, taken on the steps of Ottawa House after the wedding.  My parents were married two days before Reg and Gladys so the joint celebration of the two brothers’ weddings indeed must have been a great one! 
Reg was interested in communications technology from a very young age.  A few years ago he told us about the crystal radio he built at home on the farm when he was about twelve.. First of all, he had to figure out how to build the radio. Knowing Reg, this also would mean that he learned the theory of  how it would work. Then he constructed the set with its so-called ‘cats whiskers’ and crystal, all from components that he scrounged up on his own. The set worked and he told us that he was really amazed, not so much that it worked, but because the radio signal it brought in was broadcast from a New England station!  Even at such a young age Reg was not slow to figure out why!  He quickly realized that there wasn’t a radio station in the Maritimes with sufficient power output for him to get anything more with his home built set than the stronger stations broadcasting out of Boston.  
 It would take all of us here to try and piece together the entire story of Uncle Reg’s experiences  in the field of information technology and still it would be incomplete.  All we can say for sure is that he did begin working in the field quite early on in the  history of telephone and throughout his career helped the technology to move along and develop in more ways we can be sure than Reg himself would ever admit to. 
Uncle Reg was a true Telephone Pioneer. Jim Semple, a friend and neighbour of ours and also an MTT retiree, said ‘.I learned more from Reg Marshall at coffee breaks with him using a pen and napkin to illustrate his thinking on various topics than I ever learned from many seminars”.  Jim said that Reg was called in many times to solve critical problems during the Company’s change-over to digital technology; and also that Reg’s knowledge allowed him to suggest practical and workable solutions to complex problems. 
After retirement, Uncle Reg continued his interest in Clarence.  He  would spend countless hours and days at the Public Archives researching the histories of  families that settled the community of Clarence:  not just the Marshalls and the Elliotts (his mother’s family) but the Leonards, the Banks, the Bishops.  His research included tedious hours of reading wills, deeds and legal transcripts, most as difficult-to-read handwritten photocopies.  In turn, he would hand-write his own  manuscript, and then later transcribe it on a manual typewriter.  This was a labor of love by Uncle Reg for our family, for the community and for those with interest in local history. 
Uncle Reg was a humble man of great stature.
Lydia (Marshall) Sorflaten
February 26th 2010

I remember Reg as one of the most knowledgeable and dedicated employees of MT&T. He was always a true gentleman.

Eric and Judi
     I am thinking about you at this difficult time.  God bless and keep you.
Deepest Sympathy.
Valerie

OBITUARY

Reginald Lamont Marshall

August 26, 1914 – February 22, 2010

JA Snow Funeral Home

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