(submitted by Julia Geerts)
John Peter Geerts (1905–1991) and Antonia Van den Ouweland (1908–2000) were married in 1930 in Chaam, North Brabant, The Netherlands, in the village where they both were born in and grew up. They built a new house and raised twelve children. They farmed 18 acres for 23 years before they decided to emigrate to Canada. They took some English lessons and had medical examinations and immunization shots required by the Canadian Government.
In March, 1953 with eleven children and one son-in-law, they boarded the ship Samaria, which was a former cargo ship retrofitted to carry passengers. The children were Josie, Gerrit, Nellie, John, Cora, Ann, Ada, Catherine, Willy, Jack and Mary. They brought 30 cubic metres of new furniture with them. Their oldest daughter, 21 year old Joanne, would remain behind as she was married and had settled in Belgium with her husband August Van Bavel. Their second daughter, 20 year old Mary, had married Henry Vermeiren just before the family left.
The family arrived at Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia where they were processed through customs. Then they took the train to the quaint fishing village and summer resort town of St. Andrew’s by the Sea in New Brunswick, where they were sponsored by Dr. William O’Neill. A house was provided and the townsfolk had a hot meal ready and bedding warming by the stove. The men were sponsored to work on a dairy farm while the teenage girls worked at various jobs around town. The youngest, twenty month old Jack, was well looked after, to prevent him from falling off the cliff beside the house into the Bay of Fundy.
One job of interest was that of new son-in-law, Henry Vermeiren, who was hired to milk and manage the dairy herd on Minister’s Island, which was once the private summer estate of Sir William Van Horne, president of the Canadian Pacific Railway. One can drive to the island when the tide is low at specific times of the day. Mary and Henry lived on the island. When they came to the mainland to visit her parents in the village they would have to keep an eye on the time. If the tide was up, the only way back was by row boat.
One day the Geerts family was given a gift of a basket of fresh lobsters but they did not know what to do with them so threw them off the cliff back into the bay.
John longed to establish his family on his own farm. He knew some acquaintances who had settled in the Watford area, so he and his 19 year old daughter Ann boarded a train and looked at some farms. They purchased the Harold Auld farm on Lot 13, Con. 2 NER, now First School Road, from Charles Luckins. This farm had been settled by Scottish immigrant William Auld in 1838 and had a large yellow brick Gothic style home, two large bank barns and several out buildings.
John and Antonia and their family moved to the farm in Warwick Twp. in August, 1953. Their daughter Mary and husband Henry Vermeiren remained in New Brunswick to fulfil the one year sponsorship agreement. Mary’s first child, Adrian, was born on Minister’s Island.
The first spring John planted sugar beets. Later crops included cucumbers, beans and peas for the local pea-vine plant in nearby Warwick Village. In later years, crops were mainly corn, soybeans and wheat. John and his two teenage sons, John Jr. and Gerard, also did additional work harvesting tobacco in Delhi, Strathroy and Tillsonburg. The older girls, Ann, Nellie, Josie, and Cora, found jobs at Androck Wireworks in Watford. The younger children Ada, Catherine, Willy and Jack went to school, first at Kelvin Grove (SS#2) and later at St. Christopher’s Roman Catholic School on Hwy. 79 (Nauvoo Rd). Parents carpooled them to school. The younger girls went to work at Androck when they were older.
The old brick house and bank barns were in various states of disrepair and required a lot of work and renovations. Box stalls were torn out and replaced with two rows of stanchions with the cows facing each other, 28 in all. A herd of dairy cows was started and the name “Pine Tree” was established in 1958 to register Holstein-Friesian cattle. John was a very good stockman and was an excellent judge of true “type” dairy cattle. Milking cows with three new mechanical milking machines was a real pleasure compared to all the years in Holland milking by hand. Most farmers also kept a few sows. A highlight of the week was going to stock sales to sell weaner pigs at the Hollingsworth Sales Yard in Watford.
Antonia Van den Ouweland and husband Johannes Geerts. Courtesy J Geerts.
Jack remembers that when he was about 14 his then married brothers came to help his father build a new small farrowing barn. They made their own cement forms which gave way. Young Jack suggested using jacks that had come with attachments for such a job but most people only used them for changing tires and such. There was a scramble to locate those said attachments but eventually that did the job and the barn went up although always was six inches out on one side.
One winter day when Jack was about 16 the neighbour Lloyd Quick came shouting for help, that someone had slid into Bear Creek with his car. At that time 12 Sideroad had a bend in it with an old bridge across the creek. Jack and his father quickly drove down to assist, but stood back to access the situation. The car had broken through the ice and one end was barely floating. A man was yelling, “Don’t just stand there. Help me.” He had the back window open and could just keep his head above the chilly water. The men were afraid to touch the car for it could fall under the water with any movement. Others arrived, and with the help of a number of people they got the car pulled out. The rescued man was their neighbour, George Janes, who was taken to the hospital suffering from exposure.
Many Dutch Catholic families like the Geerts attended Our Lady Help of Christians Church in Watford. Whereas in St. Andrews-by-the-Sea there had only been one Dutch speaking lady in the area, Warwick and Watford had many more social contacts. The family had no time for sports but the family enjoyed music and dancing. They sang and played the accordion or harmonica for entertainment at home. The teenagers attended dances at Crathie Hall north of Strathroy where they could socialize. In due time each found life partners and most of them started farms of their own, some in Warwick, others in neighbouring communities.
Mary and Henry Vermeiren raised five children. They settled on Zion Line and raised turkeys for Cuddy Farms. They later retired to Warwick Village at 6995 Egremont Rd. Their sons Adrian and Rick and daughters Nancy Vermeiren and Shelly Milner still live in the area. Mary was renowned for her catering business.
Josie and John Verheyen had a farrow-to-finish hog farm on Brickyard Line and later retired to Warwick Village at 6210 Warwick Village Rd. They raised three children.
The oldest son, John G. Geerts, with his wife, Joanne Peters, started a dairy herd on Franklin Auld’s farm on the corner of First School Road and Brickyard Line. They retired and built a house at 7345 Egremont Rd. when their son Rob married. They raised five children, three of whom remain in Warwick Twp. Peter Geerts and his wife Debbie Ansems, along with Rita Geerts and her husband Bert Veens, established Birnam Orchards. Rob Geerts and his wife Patty Copeland took over the dairy herd, registered as Geraldale Holsteins Ltd., at 6585 First School Rd. After a number of years they sold the cows and quota and built two contract hog barns on Brickyard Line.
The second son, Gerard, and his wife Mary Herygers, live on Brickyard Line just east of the home farm. They raised six children. They co-own Geerts Family Farms Ltd. with their son John J. Geerts and wife Cathy, who is a travel agent. They operate three contract hog barns on Zion Line.
The youngest of John and Antonia’s daughters is Willy, married to Martin Van Kessel. They lived in Mt. Brydges for a while but returned to the Watford area. They built and lived in three homes in Warwick Village. They co-owned Van Ver Construction Company for over 25 years with their nephew Adrian and his wife Barb (Williams) Vermeiren of Warwick Twp. Willy and Martin retired to 6182 George St., Warwick Village. They raised three children.
The youngest of the sons, Jack, married Julia Michielsen, an elementary school teacher, in 1972. They established Pinetree Farms Inc. on the Geerts home farm at 6510 First School Rd., which by then was no longer a dairy farm but a sow/weaner operation. The bank barns were replaced by sow and feeder barns and Jack started a purebred herd of mostly the Yorkshire and Hampshire breed. Jack and Julia had production sales of their breeding stock at their farm for many years and in 1997 switched to market hogs until 2006 when they retired from the pig business.
The area behind the house, which was at one time dug out for making bricks (hence the name Brickyard Line) had been fenced off and had pastured cattle in the 1950s and 1960s. Jack and Julia planted pine and walnut trees there in the 1970s and now years later they are picturesque groves. They raised four children, Andrea and Brad Goss, Suzanne and Steve Thorne, Sheena and Jeff Sitlington and Lee. All either live or work in Watford.
In 1972, when Jack took over the home place, John and Antonia bought the Andrew Auld homestead to the south from Roger and Norma Quick and lived there for six years. Some people remember the old brick Scottish style arched bridge spanning Bear Creek on the private laneway to the Auld/Quick house which had been built by William Auld’s great grandson, Andrew Auld.
By 1979 John and Antonia had retired to Watford. They celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary and soon after John passed away. At the time of this writing in 2006 there are 48 grandchildren, 128 great grandchildren and 8 great-great grandchildren.
Chapter 24 of 25 - Geerts, John Peter
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