Now that there’s a ‘Sold’ sign at the end of their laneway, I guess the secret’s out. Marlie and Jim Tilker are leaving Dunvegan Road after residing here for thirteen years. Which is a real shame. Both have been staunch supporters of the Dunvegan community in general, and our little museum in particular. Marlie served a term as chairperson and then took over as treasurer, a role she still fills today. Likewise, Jim has always been an eager recruit when Jennifer sends out a request for volunteers and, nearly every day, he can be seen in his Tilker-branded truck cruising by the place to make sure that no one’s making off with the silver. Jim Tilker has also been the driving force behind the addition of CrokiCurl to the Dunvegan Winter Carnival’s list of outdoor activities. Played on pond ice, CrokiCurl combines the fun of curling and the board game crokinole. As friends and distant neighbours, Terry and I are very sad to see them move. In the past twenty-odd years, it’s become increasing rare for newcomers to become as actively engaged in the life of our little hamlet as the Tilkers have. They will indeed be missed.
Passing the torch
Other incomers who have kindly chosen to embrace Dunvegan as their adopted community are Anne Forrester-Bertrand and her husband, Mike. About three years ago, the retired couple moved into the beautiful brick farmhouse that was formerly owned by Bonnie Laing and Greg Byers and, prior to them, Margaret MacCrimmon. Anne and Mike have been active in the Dunvegan Recreation Association and have had a real impact on the group’s annual community Halloween party. Anne also sits on the DRA’s Executive Committee and has just agreed to take over Vivian Franklin’s role as “Keeper of the Hall.”
Vivian has been doing the job for the past eight years and is taking a well-earned break. So, as of this week, Anne will be managing the community hall and all that entails… from booking rentals and scheduling events to overseeing maintenance and updating the bulletin board out front. So if you want to inquire about using the Dunvegan hall for a reception, reunion, birthday or anniversary party, a celebration of life, a course or virtually any other legally sanctioned activity, just contact Anne by phone or text at (819) 230-5877… up to 8 pm. Or you can reach her by email at: annefb@me.com.
While it’s wonderful news that Anne Forrester-Bertrand has agreed to step into Vivian’s shoes, it’s a wee bit disappointing to learn that younger families (the ones with the kids who play soccer, do Halloween and visit Santa) haven’t stepped up to the DRA plate in recent years. Far too often, the “WE” generation comes across as the “Me” generation. I think the DRA might consider doing as they’ve done in Martintown and turn the Dunvegan hall into a Seniors Centre. And while they’re at it, they could convert the soccer field into and open-air sportsplex for seniors with shuffleboard, croquet, badminton and pickle ball.
Farmers still deserve a voice
A couple of weeks ago, North Glengarry counsellor Brenda Noble emailed me in response to the “Advisory vs. advocacy” item in my July 29th column in which I posited, based on its limited direct farming experience, Council could benefit from having an agricultural sounding board. Counsellor Noble assured me that the present council did have “ag street cred,” as she put it. “I have lived on a farm my entire life…” Ms. Noble wrote, “and Mr. Massie has farmed for years and has owned and worked at his feed mill, catering to farmers for much of his life.”
While I can appreciate that both Counsellors Noble and Massie have an association with agriculture, neither work on the land full-time nor deal with types of issues full-time dairy and cash crop farmers have to contend with on a daily basis. I too have “lived on a farm” for the past forty years, but that doesn’t qualify me as a professional farmer. At most, Terry and I were, for a period, hobby farmers. As for Mr. Massie, he has built a successful niche business that deals primarily with part-time farmers, exotic animal aficionados and pet owners. This is not the same sort of connection with the farming community that Munro Agromart or MacEwen Agricentre enjoys.
My comment that the present slate of North Glengarry councillors has little direct farming experience was not intended to be derogatory. It was simply a statement of fact. And I stand by my suggestion that Council consider welcoming input from an all-volunteer Farmers Advisory Committee on proposed policies and legislation that might have a potential impact on the farming community. As I see it, the goal of such a committee would be to help build a bridge between Council and the farming community. Its role would strictly be an advisory one… to assist in the decision-making process by providing information and insights from the perspective of a key sector of the local economy: agriculture.
Happy surprise birthday, “Jean”
Near on three months ago, I mentioned a farm in Lochiel that the late Peggi Calder and I had been researching. The property had been in the stewardship of the McIntosh family for over 120 years – from November of 1827, when the Crown granted the original patent to John McIntosh of Killin, Perthshlre, until it was sold to Dr. Albert E. Moll of Montreal in October of 1960. I also pointed out that the family’s stamp remains on the land to this day; there’s a small family cemetery at the south end of the farm near where Lochinvar Road and Aberdeen Road meet. If you participated in this year’s Historical Driving Tour organized by the Glengarry Pioneer Museum, you would have seen this peaceful plot first hand, as it was one of the stops on the route.
The last member of the McIntosh family to reside on the farm was John Everett McIntosh, grandson of the original patent holder. While his two brothers and two sisters all went to university, John E. forsook even high school and stayed home to help his father with the farming and the construction of a brick farmhouse to replace his grandparent’s log cabin. The building still graces the farm today. Despite his lack of formal education, John E. went on to become one of Glengarry’s most prolific writers, giving voice to the ordinary farmer through his much-loved column in the Farmer’s Advocate that he wrote in a unique Scottish dialect under the pen name of “Sandy Fraser.” John E. never married, but his persona Sandy did. Sandy’s wife Jean figured prominently in many of the over 900 columns John contributed to the Farmer’s Advocate from 1918 until his death in 1948 at the age of 72.
As noted historian Royce MacGillivray wrote in the Glengarry Historical Society’s 1973 annual report: “John McIntosh, in his role as Sandy Fraser, deserves to be remembered as a solid essayist rather than as a mere columnist. His literary gifts were especially noticeable in his lightness of style, astonishing skill in dialogue, and rich Imagination. It is a great misfortune that he never wrote a book. The Sandy Fraser articles shine like jewels in the wilderness of the back Issues of The Farmer’s Advocate, but they are likely to be completely forgotten once the last generation which read The Farmer’s Advocate has disappeared.”
I first learned of John McIntosh’s fictional characters, Sandy and Jean Fraser, at the 2019 Glengarry News annual Christmas Party, when Terry and I shared a table with Mallory Franklin and his wife Inez. Terry and Mallory had both done work on the old stone post office that the late Kenneth MacDonald purchased years ago. It was just across the road from the McIntosh farm. While reminiscing, Mallory recounted a story that Ken had told him about the columnist who used to live nearby. According to Ken, “Sandy” had been making a big to-do about “Jean’s” upcoming 60th birthday. As the story goes, Sandy’s column also appeared in Hoard’s Dairyman, a well-respected farm journal that has been published in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin since 1885. American fans of “Sandy” and “Jean” apparently decided on a surprise visit to Breadalbane, Ontario to help Sandy’s wife celebrate her milestone year… only to discover their beloved characters weren’t real and their creator was a bachelor.
The fly in the ointment, though, is Royce MacGillivray’s painstaking research. He discovered that, in addition to the Farmer’s Advocate, John E. wrote a weekly column for the Ottawa Farm Journal and also contributed articles to the Canadian Countryman and Farm and Dairymagazine. Royce makes no mention of Hoard’s Dairyman. So I went to the source and had researchers at Hoard’s comb through back issues of their publication from the 1920s to the late 1940s looking for evidence of a regular column by “Sandy Fraser” of Glengarry, Ontario. (I would have preferred to do this myself, but the Hoard’s archive has not been digitized.) I was sad to learn they could find none. Which means this great tale is most likely a tall one. Unless, of course, it was a group of loyal Farmer’s Advocate readers from away who dropped in for a surprise visit. Does Kenneth MacDonald’s story (via Mallory Franklin) ring a bell with anyone else?
As for John E., he died in February of 1948 and was laid to rest in his family’s small burial plot on the south half of Lot 14, Concession 9 in the Township of Lochiel. Always a bit of a rebel, John E. broke with the traditional casket burial. He instructed that his earthly remains be cremated. Participants in the recent GPM Historical Driving Tour would have seen the monument that commemorates him and his brothers and sisters in the private McIntosh cemetery.
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