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Note: His family moved from Bracebridge when he was six months old to Barrie. He was educated in a one-room schoolhouse. He was later in fights at school and was eventually expelled from Barrie High School. He was then sent to St. Andrews College (SAC) in Newmarket and dropped out at age 16. He then joined the Canadian Bank of Commerce at age 16, in October of 1901. He came to Collingwood in his early twenties to be a branch accountant. He was married in 1910 there, and then moved to Stratford (181 Mornington St.), where Donald was born. (Marian was taken back to Collingwood for birth). Then he moved to Watson, Saskatchewan, where Allan was born, in 1913, to be a bank manager, and at the time was one of the youngest at the the Bank. They later moved to Bassano, Alberta before 1916, where Elsie was born. In 1919 before Charles Stephen's death, they moved to Owen Sound (523 9th St. E.), a move about which they were very pleased. Roy was instrumental in the start up of the Owen Sound Golf and Country Club in 1921. Elsie died there in 1925 at their 9th Street house. Joyce was born there in 1926. The family moved to Sydney, Nova Scotia, where the bank had important connections with the steel and coal industries, in December 1929. After less than a year at Tane St. (a smaller house), they moved to 58 Park St. (we have a picture). The Sydney paper printed results of exams at Christmas for local Dalhousie students. Roy announced to his wife when he read the paper, "My son passed; your daughter did not." They later moved to Guelph, Ontario in April 1937, as he went to become manager of the Guelph branch. He was President of the Guelph Country Club in 1940 at the time his daughter was married there. In about 1943, when Jamie Richardson was a year old, Marian and Jamie moved into her parents' house while her husband, Ernie, was away in the war.
Roy retired at the age of 60 (the retirement age at the bank was 58 but they extended his term because of the war) on February 1, 1944. In his retirement notice, there is the following quote: "Mr. Findlay's continuous service for nearly 32 years as a manager is the longest of any manager in his bank, and is unusual in that he has managed branches in four different provinces as well as having served a year, in his younger days, in the mining district of Northern Ontario, being there when gold was first discovered in the Porcupine area by Ben Hollinger." It was later remarked that his banking had brought him in touch with almost every Canadian industry, from the cattle ranching of Alberta to the salt water fishing of the Atlantic. They bought 21 Barber Ave. on May 18, 1946 (?) for $8,900. It was sold in June 1981 after Muriel's death for $75,000.
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