George Mar Young or Wong/Mok Ma Yung, appeared at Young in a newspaper article on 19 February 1896, under the name of ‘Mow Young’ living at Burrangong Creek. Then in June, as ‘Mok Young’ he appears a witness in a court case where his occupation is given as ‘gardener’. In the early 1900s, he advertised as George Mar Young, Burrowa Street Garden, Young. He leased the land from Carlo Marina which were later known as the Burrowa Street Chinese Gardens. Marina’s daughter-in-law, Helen, collected Mar Young’s earliest regular contribution of funds to the Burrangong District Hospital in 1902. On 25 August 1896, as ‘George Mah Young’, he married Florence Emily Ah Young, the daughter of Thomas Louis Ah Geang/Ah Young and his wife, Isabella Maud. Florence was born at Young in 1879. George and Florence had four children at Young – Arthur William George (1897), Lillian Isabella Maud (1899), Stanley Edward Leslie (1901) and Norman Charles Aubrey (1902). Arthur won an Aggregate Merit Prize in first class in 1907. In 1908 he won the prize for arithmetic and home exercise in second class in 1908 while his brother Edie (Stanley) won the prize in language in first class. At the 1905 Young Pastoral and Agricultural Show, George Mar Young won prizes for his pumpkins, swede turnips, dried fields peas, potatoes, cabbages, cauliflowers, turnips, carrots and parsnips. In 1906, he produced a huge cauliflower weighing 28 lbs (0.453kg) and measuring 42 inches (106.6cm) in circumference. At the 1906 Show he also won numerous prizes for his vegetables. On 9 June 1909, George Mar Young took his wife and children to China, writing a letter from Hong Kong to Yip Ping Nam extolling their experience aboard the German Steamer Prinz Sigismund. Florence appears to have died in China sometime between the deaths at Young of her sister Hannah Quay in 1930 and her mother in 1940. George travelled between his home district of Dongguan (in Guandong province, China) to Tamworth where he ran a tobacco farm. It isn’t yet known where or when he died. While the children were taken to China to be educated, they returned to Australia as young adults, Stanley in 1918 and Norman in 1919. Lillian returned in 1920 and married Willie Home Ming, a tobacco farmer at Tamworth. Arthur also returned to Australia in 1920. Thanks to Ely Finch for the discovery and translation of George Mar Young’s name in the Tung Wah Times (a Chinese language newspaper of Sydney), and thanks to Cynthia Mar Young and Kristy Love for information about the Mar Young family at Tamworth.
