Marshall Ayres Jr.

His last year before entering college, he was home-schooled with his cousin and future business partner, Josiah Lombard, by the Yale graduate, Rev.

At the age of 21, he realized the necessity of a good education, and went to Boston in 1860 to attend Harvard University, graduating with honors in 1863.

Louise and Marshall Jr. had four daughters: Mary, born just a year after they were married, Winnifred, Marjorie, and Mildred.

Louise died on August 2, 1886, at the age of 38, leaving Marshall to raise two teenage daughters and the others only 12 and 6 years old.

Together they set went on a nine-month extended journey through Europe, visiting France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, England and Scotland.

The two families had already been successful business partners back in Illinois with the Ayres & Lombard Bank & Store, and also a steamboat ferry called Prairie State.

In 1887, they built the 20,000 square feet (1,900 m2) corporate vacation home Villa Maria Water Mill, Long Island, where the two families could relax for the summer, but Ayres' wife Louise died in September and never got to enjoy it.

Ayres is buried in Woodland Cemetery, Bronx, New York, alongside his business partner and cousin Josiah Lombard Jr. Lombard read the following at their 50th Harvard class reunion on June 26, 1907: "He died as he lived, loved and respected by all who knew him.