“The proudest day of my life was when I saw Winston Churchill stand up in the House Of Parliament and state that it was Canadian farmers that won the Second World War.” Such are the memories of 90-year-old Thorold S Dupre, non-retired farmer of unending energy and thought.
Born in September of 1915, Thorold was the third of four children born in the Dupre house we now sit in. His grandparents came to be in this house shortly after coming from the US in the United Empire Loyalist movement of the 1800’s. The red brick farmhouse still has what was known as a widow’s tower on top of it, obvious influence from the journey through eastern Canada. Apparently eastern wives were accustomed to sitting in the glassed in turrets so they could watch the fishing boats return from sea, and hope for the safe return of their husbands.
Mr. Dupre sits at the original kitchen table and tells me stories of long ago, and about the long Dupre lineage continuing on with his own son Lyle, who has an adjacent farm and continues to support the activities at the old homestead.
Mr. Dupre slaps a hand to his knee and shakes his head, “ I dunno, I feel great, not an ache or pain anywhere, I can’t explain it.” He then jumps up from his chair and dances around the old kitchen just in case I missed the point. At a very young 90 years he hasn’t slowed a bit and on this day he doesn’t look like he will anytime soon. He still grows most of his own food, including berries from his garden, of which he gives me some. He does admit to buying his milk however since the dairy cattle are long gone.
Since his wife passed away from Alzheimer’s five years ago, Mr. Dupre has been “batchin’ it,” he says. A newer corn pellet stove now heats the old farmhouse, recently installed, replacing the wood stove, Dupre’s only concession to getting up in years.
Somehow we get into a conversation on religion. Dupre admits that there are more questions than answers and is a bit unsure where he stands on the whole religion issue. He claims ignorance of the bible, but manages to recite several scriptures to thicken our conversation. He tells me that he saw the Reverend Billy Graham several years ago, who told him that heaven was just about full up, “ so I’ve lived my life accordingly ever since.” He slaps his knee again and we both enjoy another chuckle.
We discuss many issues but we keep coming back to his first love, farming. Thorold S Dupre has been a farmer all of his life, just like his father and his father’s father. He’s seen the world change a lot over the years and he’s watched farming switch from something we all had total dependency on to where it is now. Although he did have a few milk cows years ago, he quickly found that cash crops and crop spraying were the way of the future for him. With the first baler in the Napanee area, he quickly sold the milkers and started baling hay for sale. At ten cents apiece and about a thousand bales per day, it was long hard work. After the highway 401 went through the farm, he was left with only sixty acres so other farms were rented or bought outright to keep things going. Somehow the Dupre cash crop business stayed alive.
He fondly recalls the years of crop spraying and brush clearing with the chemicals the government deemed to hazardous to use. He is probably underestimating when he says he has sprayed nearly a million acres in his lifetime. Most of those years he used DDT, which he still believes to be mostly harmless if used properly. It’s hard to argue looking at him today. When the government began a campaign to collect all stores of the banned chemical, he quickly set about spraying the last of his lot the day before the government representatives came to collect it. He recalls sheepishly telling them, “ well geez, I just used it all up yesterday.” He talks to me at length about modern herbicides and pesticides when he jumps to his feet again to retrieve an expansive “Guide To Weed Control” manual. We leaf through the pages and he reels off names and descriptions I’ve never heard of, not losing a thing, he draws comparisons between then and now.
When the hydro lines bisected his farm, Ontario Hydro hired him to spray miles of hydro right of way to clear it of brush and weeds. He has taken his spraying machinery as far away as Amhurst Island where he did expansive brush spraying.
Lately, Mr. Dupre has been joining other farmers in protest convoys to try to raise public awareness about the plight of farmers. He chose to leave his tractor at home however, opting to ride in the farm truck with son Lyle. He says there was a good turn out of protesters but holds out little hope that the Canadian government will come to their aid. He admits that Canadian farmers cannot compete with heavily subsidized farmers in the world market, especially when on an uneven playing field with our biggest trading partner, the United States.
Once again with more questions than answers our talk turns to his storied past. His father was a bit of a horse trader and used to breed some horses to sell the colts. One particular horse he had, suffered some from a bit of gastric upset and tended to fart frequently. One day as Thorold and his brother Garnet stood out in the pasture talking, Garnet rolled up a cigarette. He struck a match and lit his cigarette but instead of shaking the match out, Garnet decided to let the horse blow out the match, of course from the south end of the north bound horse. With astonishment the boys watched a giant fireball ignite and blow out the lit match.
Thorold tells me how he cursed once and his mother caught him. A mouth full of homemade soft soap cured him of that nasty habit. He’s never drunk alcohol and only tried smoking once. He quickly gave it up however when the smoke curled up into his face and stung his eyes. Thorold S Dupre is certainly a man who wanted to have clear vision throughout his life.