Bill B. Marr, of rural Amoret, MO., passed away from extreme old age and complications of Covid19 on October 1st, 2020. He was 98 years old, a businessman, farmer, husband, father, and self-proclaimed “best nine-fingered guitarist in Bates County.” Graveside services will be held 2:30 pm Tuesday, October 6, 2020 in Oak Hill Cemetery, Butler, Missouri. There will be no visitation. Friends are welcome to attend, face masks are encouraged and social distancing should be observed. Memorial contributions may be made to the Alzheimer’s Association. Messages of condolence may be left at www.mullinaxfuneralhome.com.
Bill was born to James B. and Dorothy Marr on July 11th, 1922. He was raised the son of a farmer, and spent his youth helping his parents work their 600 acres in the rural Merwin community. Tending to crops, as well as every imaginable form of livestock, Bill on occasion spoke of coming of age during the Great Depression. To help the family weather the hard times, he chopped wood for neighboring families, an enterprise that he felt left him with impressive physical strength for the remainder of his life. He was proud of the fact that, though his family had lost almost everything by the time the Depression ended, they managed to hold onto their land.
Bill attended high school in Adrian, Missouri, and despite his short stature, was regarded county-wide as a star basketball player. At the age of 17 he enrolled in the University of Missouri, Columbia, and graduated with a degree in agriculture. He turned down other educational options, and had in fact won a music scholarship to what would later be Missouri State University, based upon, as he would later put it, his “melodious tenor voice.”
Upon graduation, and in the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Bill enlisted in the United States Navy. He attended Officer Candidate School at Columbia University in New York City, and was eventually awarded the rank of Lieutenant, JG. While he rarely spoke of these years – as is true with many of his generation – he saw action in some of the most brutal locales of the Pacific Theater. He revealed late in life that he was present for the bloody invasion of Iwo Jima, and on at least two occasions the ships on which he sailed were under threat from Kamikaze pilots. The war years had a profound effect on Bill, and he once mentioned that he had lost many friends and comrades to battle, drownings, and shark attacks. He was en route to the proposed US invasion of Japan – aboard a small destroyer - when nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was in Tokyo Harbor when the Japanese surrendered on September 2nd, 1945.
To give perspective to generations past and present, Bill was still but 23 years old.
Though he wished to make a career out of naval service, Bill’s parents pleaded with him to return home and help them with the farm. Loyal to their wishes, he resigned his commission and came back to Bates County. Assisting his father on the family farm (and losing the aforementioned finger in a grain auger accident, which lead him to be a nine-fingered guitarist) Bill soon met Ruth Jensen in Butler. The two were married on November 18th, 1951, and purchased 360 acres in rural Amoret that same year. The couple initially lived in Adrian, and moved to their farm in 1953.
For a time, in addition to farming, Bill worked selling real estate for the United Farm Agency, and insurance for MFA. In 1953 he bought into an existing insurance business, known as The Adrian Agency, and eventually purchased it outright. Bill operated that business very successfully for 20 years, selling it in 1972.
Though he considered himself a farmer at heart, Bill was resolute in the concept of undertaking a diverse business life. Though he loved growing crops, he opined on more than one occasion that farming was a risky proposition at best. He attributed his father’s early death in part to the rigors of farming, and concluded that “there are easier ways to make money than killing yourself.”
And so, sometimes with partners and sometimes solo, he engaged in numerous business ventures. He was one of the principals in Triangle Investments of Adrian, which at various times built and sold homes and subdivisions, as well as owning a restaurant, lumber yard, cable TV franchise, car dealerships, and numerous real estate investments. Community minded in a quiet way, Bill was instrumental in the construction of Adrian’s first senior-citizen complex. He also, usually anonymously, provided financial aid to many individuals and organizations that required assistance.
Retiring at age 50, Bill soon learned that he was not well suited for retirement. In the late 1970s he opened Bill Marr Motors on the family farm, his office being a converted grainery in an old barn. Between that time and 2009, he sold used cars and trucks, moving more titles through the county tax offices than most local dealerships of the times. When he was nearing 80 years of age, Bill taught himself computer skills in order to adapt to technology and continue the stock-market investing that he had engaged in for years. Until his late 80s, he could often be found seated behind the computer screen, analyzing potential investments and making online trades.
Bill leaves behind his wife, Ruth, and two sons, Alan and Ron. He will be remembered as a happy man who, though sometimes impatient, always had time to shoot a game of snooker, play basketball or ping pong with his boys, or have a good laugh. He loved games of all sorts, had a ready smile, and in the face of life’s challenges always managed to keep his sense of humor.
At the end of any family gathering, large or small, Bill would inevitably exclaim, “I’m sure glad we could all be here to whoop ‘er up.”
Same here, Daddy . . . Same here.
