Marinus A. Sorber Marinus A. Sorber, for the past seven years an undertaker at No. 267 Grandville avenue, Grand Rapids, and for twenty-five years a resident of the city, was born in Holland in 1848, and was reared a carpenter and cabinetmaker. He was married November 20, 1873, in the city of Grand Rapids, to Miss Anna Vanderschoor, a native of the Netherlands, and to this union have been born eight children, of whom four only are now living, viz: Catherine, wife of Jacob Westerbaan, and the mother of one child, Annie; Nellie, wife of Wallace Waalkes; Marina and Jennie, all of Grand Rapids. Mr. Sorber has taken great pride in the educations of these children and is also an ardent friend of public education. His trade of cabinetmaker naturally led Mr. Sorber to the making of coffins, and this to the undertaking business, in which he is now fully posted and up-to-date in all its details; he has achieved an excellent reputation in this line, being decorous in his demeanor and affable and obliging in his disposition, and now commands a good share of the funeral directing business of the city. In politics Mr. Sorber is a republican in his proclivities, but in local affairs votes for the man he deems most suitable for the duties of the office to be filled. His religion is that of the Lutheran church, of which he and his family are members, and his course of life has been such as to win the respect of all who know him. Mr. Sorber has been a good, true and law-abiding citizen, and has done all in his power to advance the interests of his adopted city and to promote its substantial prosperity, and this patriotism has been reflex in its action, for with the prosperity of the community his own affairs have prospered, and the object he had in view when, in his early days, he came here, has been daily plainer to his sight and has become a palpable realization – the independence that results from industry, but which is so seldom rewarded even with a bare pittance in his native land.