Ed Marshall was born December 18, 1923 in Toronto, Ontario, where he grew up in the city’s east end. His father and grandfather were veterans of the Great War, and both had served as bakers in the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Ed’s early life was set against the backdrop of the Great Depression, so while he and friends had many sports-related adventures in Toronto, he also recalls that he left school after Grade 10 so he could work and help support the family. He became a printer’s apprentice at the Globe and Mail, a job that he would return to after the war. When the war broke out the underaged Ed opted to join the RCAF; his first stop was Hamilton, where he attended school to upgrade his education to Grade 12. With that he went into the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan and headed out to Regina, Saskatchewan, where his pilot training took place. It turned out that Ed was not able to complete that training: a low level flight to impress a young lady did not have the desired effect, and Ed’s plane was damaged and he was punished for that infraction. Ed spent a few weeks in the base jail, and for the next year he did KP duty and things of that nature: his days of pilot training were over. During that year he asked for overseas postings, but was refused each of the three times he asked as the military said he could not be trusted. Frustrated, Ed asked to change services, and he was permitted to go into the army. He began his army training in Ontario, and when he learned about the parachute battalion he decided to volunteer and was sent off to Shilo for jump training. That specialized training took a while, and by the time he was ready to deploy to Europe the war there had come to an end. Ed was reassigned to the 6th Division and began a new round of training with American weapons and equipment, expecting to head to the Pacific to fight the Japanese. That war also came to an end before he could be sent into the fray. Ed was quickly demobilized, and he returned to his printer’s apprenticeship at the Globe and Mail. He also met a young lady named Molly, and the two of them would marry and raise their family. Ed made the news when he turned 100; he decided to do a parachute jump to celebrate the occasion – and to fundraise for Sick Kids’ Hospital, bringing in more than $100 000 in the process. Ed Marshall was interviewed by Scott Masters at the family cottage at Chandos Lake, Ontario in August 2024.
