08/07/27: Grandma’s farm

My grandmother was raised on her great uncle’s farm west of St. Catharines. Her ancestors had lived in that part of the region for generations, as is evidenced in the roads – Martindale, for example – that bear their names. The vineyards and orchards they’d so proudly cultivated were obliterated in one of the latest bursts of suburban sprawl. The only memory of the family farm is small cenotaph in the neighborhood park, which developers named after my great grandfather Roy Johnson.

Roy Johnson and his wife (born 1896 and 1898 respectively) had 9 children – 4 boys and 5 girls. My grandmother, Kathleen, was the third oldest. From a very young age, she was taught the meaning of work – something she’s carried with her throughout her life.

She married my grandfather, Arthur Murray, in 1950, and, shortly thereafter, convinced him to purchase farmland in Niagara-on-the-Lake. “The weeds were soooo high,” she recalled, explaining how she’d known it was good land to buy.

My grandfather, who had grown up in Merritton, a small city which has since been amalgamated with St. Catharines, knew very little about farming. After receiving electrical training while in the navy, during WWII, he’d taken a job with Ontario Hydro. Though the pay was exceptional, the long stints in the northern parts of the province – away from home, away from his new family – became more and more unbearable. He took a position at the local General Motors plant in 1954 and worked there until his retirement in 1989. Like many men at the factory, however, the work day did not end at the end of his shift, for when he had vowed to love and support my grandmother, he’d also vowed to love and support her farm.