 Upon graduation , Arthur Sifton returned to Winnipeg to article with Albert Monkman until 1881 , when he followed his father to Brandon . John hoped to take advantage of a local real estate boom ; nominally , Arthur was running a Brandon branch of Monkman 's law firm , though he had not yet finished his articling and was accordingly unqualified to practise law . On September 20 , 1882 , he married Mary Deering of Cobourg ; the pair would have two children , Nellie Louise Sifton ( born August 1883 ) and Lewis Raymond St Clair Sifton ( born February 1898 ) . In 1883 , he wrote and passed his bar exam and joined Clifford 's Brandon law firm , now styled Sifton and Sifton . 
