Remembering our roots ~ Colin Grant

John Godsman
Times Contributor

 

Colin’s father John Douglas Grant was born in Rathen, Aberdeenshire, Scotland in 1904. He moved to Ontario in 1905, and to the Strathmore area in 1912.
Colin’s mother Marie Collins was born in Moscow, Idaho, and came here in 1915. Colin and Marie met while attending Craigantler School (about two miles east of Standard Corner) and were married in 1931. They had five children.
Colin was born Mar. 11, 1937 at the Holy Cross Hospital, in Calgary.
Coincidentally, both of his brothers and his two children were born there, and all were attended by the same doctor. He and his brother Gordon lived with their grandparents at Standard, from 1939 to 1946, while their father served during the Second World War.
Upon their dad’s return from the war, all the family moved to Marie and John’s farm near Standard where they continued farming; Colin’s second brother Gene was born there in 1947.
Colin’s interest in cattle and farming began while his father was away fighting in the Second World War, and he and his mother were at the McLean’s Auction Sales. Colin had a $2 bill, and asked his mother if she would exchange it for a $5 bill. When asked what he planned to do with $5, Colin re-plied: “Buy a calf!”
Mother didn’t believe him, but when they returned to the auction, they were just in time for the open-ing bid. The first item was a heifer calf, and when the auctioneer asked for an opening bid, Colin bid $5. No one countered him, so he got his calf for $5. This calf grew to be a cow, and Colin got 13 calves from her, before selling her for $103. Not a bad investment!
Colin attended school in Standard until age 15, when he started work building annexes on grain ele-vators. As my readers know, farming during the winter months is usually very lean, so when Colin’s Uncle Carl (Collins) invited him to learn to drive highway trucks, he jumped at the chance. His first trip was to Edmonton, where he unloaded freight, before reloading a 38,000-pound payload of fresh eggs for Winnipeg. On arrival, not one egg was damaged. This became his introduction to long haul trucking, a job he participated in and enjoyed for years to come, but only during the winter months. In the summer he farmed on land he rented from his Aunt Grace in Standard.
In 1959, Colin became an outrider at the Calgary Stampede, and enjoyed this for the next five years.
On Nov. 14, 1959 he married Dorinne McMillan in Gleichen. She had been born at Holy Cross Hos-pital in Calgary, with the same doctor attending as with Colin’s family. Dorinne had worked for the Canadian Bank of Commerce, now CIBC, in both Calgary and Gleichen. They had two children – daughter Kim and son Greg – and there are now five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Dorinne loved driving all kinds of farm equipment, especially the combine harvester.
When Kim was born in 1964, Colin stopped outriding and became a gravel truck driver for the County of Wheatland, started his own cattle herd and hauled crude oil for Dale Nielsen of Standard. In the winter months he drove highway trucks for Trimac.
He returned to the Calgary Stampede in 1979, and became a judge for the chuck wagon races – a position he held for 27 years. When Dorinne was diagnosed with cancer in 2006, Colin retired from all outside activities and became a farmer. Sadly, cancer took Dorinne away from their home in 2008.
Throughout the years, Colin had been building up his Simmental-Angus-cross herd at his ranch near Standard, and he was well respected for the quality of his cattle.
Colin and Dorinne loved their community of Standard, and their family emphasizes that they got in-volved in everything the community had to offer, including the Lions Club, sports clubs, etc.
Changes in this area include the paved roads, the twinning of the TransCanada Highway, and all the traffic, as well as the new technology available to farmers.