Written by:  Jim Klein

Marie Harrop recently celebrated her 99th birthday. Friends of Fintry offer this lovely lady sincere congratulations.

Marie and her husband Art Harrop lived and worked at Fintry from 1939-47. Art actually began there as a 19-year-old in 1933, working in the dairy operation and later in the orchard and packinghouse.

The couple married in 1939 and moved into the chalet at Fintry. The home, located a stone’s throw from what’s now the 307th step of the staircase along the falls, burned down decades later. After wearing out several pairs of shoes climbing up and down the steep slope to and from the chalet, Marie asked Art to inquire about moving to another house on the property. They moved into a little house, also gone now, just west and south of the White House. Although the chalet was a better structure, their new home was easier to get to.

Marie says she enjoyed living at Fintry, where she was homemaking, swimming and playing tennis at Ewings Landing. Still, she found the days long and wanted something else to do. She asked Art to talk to Fintry’s Estate Manager, Mr. Angus Gray, about another job she might do, perhaps in the packinghouse. Mr. Gray agreed and Marie became a fruit packer along with a largely Japanese crew in a packinghouse by the lake on the Fintry property. She did that happily for a number of years.

Marie recalls meeting Capt. Dun-Waters on only a few occasions. At that time (1939), he was very ill but she remembers him being a very nice man. Marie and Art worked at Fintry during the Fairbridge Farm era. She remembers the young people there learning how to farm. Until recently, she maintained contact with some of them.

Marie and Art moved from Fintry to Ellison in 1947 to work on the Bulman Ranch so their girls could attend school.