George was born at his parents home in the river city of Whanganui New Zealand in March 1919 during the Spanish Flu pandemic. His birth was hugely celebrated as his father was 60 and had had an adopted daughter from a previous marriage who had died.  George's mother was only 27 when they married and he was their first child of four. The family was of Scottish and English stock. It is interesting to note that George's father had been born in 1858 before the American Civil War.

When George was six his father died and so George became the man of the house. He was very clever and with great artistic and language ability however it really troubled him that he had no affinity for Mathematics which he felt had held him back. For many years he held the record at the Whanganui Airport for soloing in the shortest time.

After leaving school George went to work firstly on a farm on then on the railways and it was this occupation which took him overseas. During WW2 when the Allies were fighting German and Italian forces in North Africa, the decision was made to build a railway across the desert to supply the troops. Local labour was used to build the network but the call went out for New Zealand railwaymen to operate the service. George volunteered and shipped out to Egypt as part of a special outfit called the 16th Railway Operating Company as part of the NZ Expeditionary force. He had a small Leica camera and was able to capture some amazing images. It was this experience which gave him a 'wander lust' and on his return to New Zealand he trained as a builder as part of New Zealand's equivalent of the GI Bill. He was then able to travel to Canada and eventually found his way to the US. One of his most interesting jobs was working for Pan American Airways and being stationed on Wake Island. This was back when planes did not have the range to fly right across the Pacific without overnighting on Wake. George operated the desalination plant as there was no fresh water on the island. This was a great time as it meant he could get standby flights back to New Zealand and so he visited in 1961 and again in 1962. Those were to be his only visits to the land of his birth and he became a naturalized American and renounced his New Zealand citizenship.

Eventually George settled in San Jose and looked into buying some land where he could fulfil his dream of having his own place.

He has loved his time living in Redwood Retreat Road. He told his sister Barbara he felt he'd achieved the 'American Dream'.

George was intelligent, articulate and enormously resourceful. He did not suffer fools gladly and was widely read. Despite having lived in the US for over over 70 years he still maintained an interest in his homeland although he frequently amused his relatives with his belief that New Zealand hadn't changed since his last visit in the 1960's not realizing how pervasive American culture is both through film and television and the news media. He was similarly surprised when he met Americans who knew anything about New Zealand but got quiet pleasure from seeing NZ products like wine, Manuka honey and kiwi fruit in stores.

In the last three decades he had been visited by his sister Barbara and a number of his 13 nieces and nephews and some of his great nieces and nephews who remember him as a kind, charming and loving uncle possessed of a fine sense of humour.

Kua hinga te tōtara i te waonui a Tāne - A tōtara has fallen in the great forest of Tāne.