Geerts, Jack

(submitted by Julia Geerts)

Jack Geerts (1951–) was the last child born to John and Antonia (Van den Ouweland) Geerts in Noord Brabant. He was born at home, as is the Dutch custom.

In March of 1953 he immigrated to Canada with his family. After landing at Pier 21 in Halifax they took the train to St. Andrew’s by the Sea, New Brunswick, where they lived in a little house on the edge of the Bay of Fundy. Jack’s mother often spoke of the huge cliff that she worried he would fall from. Later, when Jack visited the site, the cliff didn’t seem very high!

In August, 1953 the family moved to Watford, Ont., to Lot 13, Con. 2 NER. The house on this property was built around 1858. It is a yellow brick story and a half, built in the gothic style common in the area. The foundation is fieldstone. The walls, including some of the interior walls, are a brick and a half deep. Bricks were made from the local brickyard, most likely from directly behind the house. The house is quite symmetrical with a wing at each end of a large central room. It had a front and back porch. Two chimneys serviced the stoves and the house had an extra staircase from the kitchen, likely to house the hired help. A coal furnace, electricity and a small bathroom were installed in the 1930s or 1940s. One could not get from the two large upper rooms to the other side of the house to the bedrooms. In the 1970s Jack opened the dividing upstairs wall for fire safety reasons. Some of the rooms had plaster or wainscoting on the bricks. The parlour and bedrooms were plaster on lath.

The furnace pipes were so big Jack could have crawled through them. Many people refer to the old furnaces as octopuses. Although the heat went up by convection the intake of coal ran by electricity. Coal was dumped into the basement coal storage area and then into a hopper which was a 3 x 3 foot box that had a lid and was filled every day in the winter, or as needed, with coal which was then augured in automatically, thermostat controlled, into the fire pot. The burnt coal sometimes had lumps and Jack remembers a neat gadget that was a long hollow rod with another rod inside that had a three pronged hook on the end. The middle rod would be pulled from the bottom and the hook would grasp the lumped coal. Jack’s father put in a new oil furnace and built a double car garage where there had been an old attached shed. Cedar shingles were on the roof and most likely were still the original.

In 1958 John Geerts registered his dairy cattle under the name “Pine Tree”. As a youngster, Jack was in charge of sketching the markings of the calves to identify them for registration, so he sat many times on an overturned milk pail in the calf pens with his pencil and charts. The Canadian Holstein-Friesians had become superior to the cattle in Holland where the breed had originated.

At age 14, Jack was operating the combine and other machinery. When he was 16 and all his siblings had married and moved away, his father gave him the option about what he would like to continue, dairy or hogs. They decided to tear the dairy barn down and build a new sow barn.

Jack had started school in St. Christopher’s Roman Catholic School at the corner of Hwy. 79 and 22 with his sisters Willy and Catherine. Later the school amalgamated with St. Peter Canisius in Watford and he was bussed to school there for grades 7 and 8.

Jack started going to dances sponsored by the Catholic Youth Club at the little community centre in Arkona. Later the dances were held at Taxandria Hall in Arkona or the Parkhill or Watford Community Centres. Each winter there were skating parties followed by dances at the Lucan Community Arena. In the earlier years the club was exclusive to Catholic teens. Jack’s mother was very adamant that he date only Catholic Dutch girls but he did not always listen. It is not known for sure but he thinks it was just as important to her that the girl be Dutch as much as she had to be Catholic.

In the 1950s his sisters and brothers had always gotten spruced up for going out to dances and on dates. They wore dress clothes. Polishing shoes on Saturday morning was a ritual. Not Jack. It was the hippy era and ragged jeans, high top runners and t-shirts were the style. This was most embarrassing for Jack’s parents who did not understand the new era of rock and roll, the Beatles, Jimmy Hendrix, Black Sabbath and the like. The constant argument of “get a hair cut” was on.

Geerts family celebrating 50 years in Canada. Back: John Geerts, Jack Geerts, Catherine Van Kessel, Henry and Mary Vermeiren, Ada Hendrikx, Gerard Geerts, Cora Relouw. Front: Nellie Vereyken, Josie Verheyen, Ann Straatman, Willy Van Kessel. Courtesy J Geerts.

Jack met Julia Michielsen (1951–), a farm girl who lived in West Williams Twp., at one of the dances. Julia and her family had immigrated to Canada in 1953 from Belgium. When they met, Julia was just finishing high school and would go on to London Teacher’s College. She started teaching Grade 1 at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel School, just north of Parkhill.

Jack and Julia were married in 1972. They bought the Geerts home farm and John and Antonia moved to the 45 acre Auld/Quick farm. Jack and Julia slowly modernized the old house. They kept the exterior mostly true to the original character. Shortly after Jack and Julia were married they asked the Ministry of Forestry to plant the flats behind the house with pine and walnut trees. Now 34 years later they are picturesque groves full of wildlife.

Jack was interested in establishing a purebred swine herd so started looking and traveling in Ontario and the USA for breeding stock. Once they bought a boar from Georgia for $5,400. The Canadian government required all pigs to be quarantined for 30 days before bringing them into the country. This was always a challenge since the animals had to be blood tested and approved prior to being delivered to the quarantine station in Windsor. If an animal did not pass it had to be returned to the state of origin. Soon Jack was producing a fine herd of Yorkshire and Hampshire stock. The business became Pinetree Farms Inc.

Jack Geerts took a term as president of the Ontario Yorkshire Breeders Association and showed gilts and boars at the Ontario Pork Congress. Pigs were tested at the government run Ontario boar test station in New Dundee. Every month approximately 100 boars from numerous breeders in Ontario were tested for feed conversion, back fat and rate of gain. This was a fair comparison of stock and genetics raised in the same environment. Every month the top 25 would be sold at auction at the Test Station Sales. Pinetree Farms boars topped the sales several times in both performance and dollar value.

In 1975 the Geerts tore down the second old bank barn and in its place put up a new partially slatted feeder barn framed by Tony Vaskor Construction Co. from Inwood. A new more automated mix mill replaced the old portable mix mill that had been used for making feed. A new high moisture silo and leg elevator was built by Wilcocks Bros. from Watford. They put in farrowing crates with gutters to replace the older farrowing pens in the sow barn. The old brick dry sow barn was renovated to have a partial slatted floor and gutter, all now requiring a new liquid manure pit replacing the old solid manure pile.

Julia quit her teaching job to stay home with their four children: Andrea (1976–), Suzanne (1979–), Sheena (1982–), and Lee (1984–) and to help on the farm. Pinetree Farms sold R.O.P. tested gilts and boars privately at the farm until April of 1982 when they had their first production sale. Catalogues were sent a month ahead to regular and prospective customers and an offering of approximately 125 head would be sold by auction at a spring and fall sale. By that time Jack and Julia owned the Quick 45 acre farm, having bought it from his parents who had moved to Watford. There was an old barn on it. This was the ideal place to have a sale with a degree of bio-security from disease from other hog farmers who would bring their farm trucks and trailers to take home their purchases. There was a good area for parking in the pasture beside the barn. Jack added a sale barn and leans for pens to show the sale pigs. They would be moved the morning of the sale into individual pens and paint-branded their lot number for the day to identify them.

Jack had broken his knee cap that winter playing hockey and Julia was eight months pregnant with their third child so it was not that easy getting everything ready but it all came together for the first swine sale. The Geerts had a total of 36 production sales over the years. Julia was in charge of advertising, cataloguing, serving coffee and donuts and clerking the evening of the sales. Jack was busy moving pigs from the home place, washing, paint-branding and leading them in the sale ring during the auction. He hired auctioneers with experience in swine auctions. Extra help was hired that evening to move pigs in and out. Once in a while they had customer appreciation lunches of sausage on a bun. Their children helped out when they grew old enough.

With the drastic change in the swine industry squeezing out the smaller producers the Geerts family decided in 1995 to sell their sow herd and renovate all their barns to fully slatted and automated feeder pens for 1000 market hogs and in 2006, after 34 years, they retired from the pig business.

Julia went back to teaching part time as a supply teacher from 1987–1997. She also completed a degree in Anthropology at the University of Western Ontario. Daughter Andrea also attended the University of Western Ontario and received a degree in Human Resources and added a post-graduate course from Lambton College. Suzanne received her diploma in Business from Lambton College. Sheena received her diploma from Lambton College in Office Administration and added a certificate for Healthcare Support Worker. Lee completed his diploma in the field of Financial Services from Fanshawe College.

As a child, Jack had no opportunity to play organized sports. When he passed his drivers license at the age of 16, he started playing hockey and played for the Watford Flyers Rec League for many years. He was number 8. His son, Lee, played Minor Hockey for the Watford Wolves as a goalie.

Jack is a life member of the Watford Optimist Club and has held two terms as president, in 1984 and 2001. He was Optimist Lieutenant Governor in 1988. Julia is an active member of the Watford Catholic Women’s League. In 2004 Julia and Jack started relief foster parenting for the Sarnia-Lambton Children’s Aid Society.

At the time of this writing Julia and Jack have four grandchildren. Andrea and her husband Brad Goss live in Alvinston on Railroad Line with their two sons, Ethan and Isaac. Suzanne and husband Steve Thorne live on John Street in Watford with their children Braeden and Hannah. Their daughter Sheena and husband Jeff Sitlington live on St. Clair Street in Watford, while their son Lee lives at home.

Chapter 24 of 25 - Geerts, Jack

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