The Rural Voice, 2003-02, Page 28W▪ IMP
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Those were the days
Heritage Award winning couple recalls the changes from the days when
market hogs sold for $5 to the closure of rural schools
Story by Greg Brown
ralph and Dorine McGuire
epresent a generation of
armers who have witnessed
many changes in agriculture and
rural life during the past 50 years.
Born in the 1930s they have
known times when families had no
money. They have seen teams and
horse-drawn equipment replaced
with tractors and modern machinery.
They have seen the decline of
bustling rural settlements with the
closing of the general stores, one -
room schools and churches. Despite
these dramatic changes in the rural
way of life, it is because of the
dedication to farming and
commitment to their community by
people like the McGuires that
agriculture is still an important part
of our community.
The McGuires have many stories
to tell, from their childhood to the
many years they have farmed
together at Duncan, a small
community in the southeast part of
Euphrasia Township.
Ralph recalls, "I can sure
remember from when I was five or
six until the war there was no money
of any account. That Depression was
something else. My Dad — in 1931,
his income for the whole year was
just around $200. I can remember
going down to the station
(Thornbury) with the sleigh, or the
wagon, taking pigs down. They were
market pigs and they got them up to
about 250 pounds then, and they got
just around $5 a pig."
He went on to say, "No one ever
went hungry on the farm. The best
place to be was on the farm. We grew
a big garden, and my mother canned
everything, and we had our own
milk, butter and eggs."
Donne has lived in Duncan all her
life. "My great-grandfather was the
founder of the Duncan store in 1866,
then my grandfather ran it, then my
mother. The white building beside
the church at the corner was the store
and post office. That was a thriving
24 THE RURAL VOICE
Dorine and Ralph McGuire (centre) receive the Euphrasia Township
Federation of Agriculture's Agricultural Heritage Award from Paul DeJong
(left), President of the Grey County Federation of Agriculture and Don
McCausland, Mayor of Grey Highlands.
store until 1975 when the big stores
came into being and everyone got
driving to town. The roads were
plowed on a regular basis after that."
But when she was going to high
school the roads were not plowed in
the winter and they would stay in
town during the week. She recalls,
"They would try and get us home on
the weekend but often we would
walk right from where you turn off
the Beaver Valley highway to come
up here to Duncan."
Donne began teaching, as she put
it, "right out of high school" and was
the teacher at the one -room school at
Duncan when she and Ralph met at a
dance. It wasn't long before they
were married and settled on their new
farm just up the road from the school.
Ralph has a passion for, and a
special touch with, horses. He has
always enjoyed working with them,
first the workhorses and then saddle
horses. He had his team of mares
trained so he could do the haying by
himself when the couple started out
farming. The horses would follow the
windrows pulling the hayloader and
Ralph would build the load. At the
barn the team would pull the load off
and he would spread it in the mow.
As their farming career began to
wind down in recent years Ralph was
again able to hay by himself, now
with the round baler.
When Dorine was growing up in
Duncan many of the community
events took place in the Orange Hall,
which is gone now. By all accounts
they had some "rattlin" good times
there. She explained, "Back then
there was music in the community.
Someone could always play the
violin, someone would play the piano
and guitar and banjo. But it's
changed now."
Later the school was the centre for
many community events. "We used
to have dances there and of course
always `presentations'. If someone
got married there would be a
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