Long before the idea of getting our foods from within a hundred miles; long before it was fashionable to recycle and reuse, a German immigrant in our city led the way with innovation.
Karl Keichmeister came to Canada in the late 1920s and and worked underground at the Hollinger Mine. He met and married Mary Dorn in 1936 and had 3 children, Don, Pat and Herb. A letter from his daughter Pat tells this story:
“Shortly after I was born in 1940, dad surprised my mother by quitting his job at Hollinger and buying a piece of land about a mile from what was called The Sand Claims.”
Although the road names have changed, that land was located a half mile north of Laforest Road and between Highway 655 and McLean Drive.
“I was just a baby when they moved there, but my parents built our house, cleared the land and developed a vegetable farm which they called the Northland Marsh Gardens.”
“Early in the 1940s and because it was wartime, my parents wanted to shed their German heritage and be “Canadian” so they had our name legally changed to my mother’s maiden name but with an ‘a’ included. I was just learning how to print my name and I recall how happy I was to have the new, much shorter name of ‘Doran’.”
“When I started school, I can remember my brother Don and me travelling in winter by dogsled to the one-roomed schoolhouse at the Sand Claims. That school closed after my first year there and afterwards we were taken by taxi to Schumacher Public School. ”
“As children, we had no time to be bored because we had to help with the seemingly endless garden chores. We made a living by selling vegetables at the farm, at the farmers’ markets and to stores like Urquhart’s, the Mike’s Food Stores, the A&P and the Dominion. I was ten years old before electricity came to us and 17 when we got a telephone.”
When he was in his 80s, Karl came up with an idea that not only benefited him, but is worth passing along today. Karl took old tires, cut the sides off them so as to make a ring with the treads for each mini-garden and after putting screening at the bottom he filled them with earth. By 1983 he was growing broad beans, celery, radishes, potatoes, lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli and tomatoes in over 100 such tires. “My tire gardens eliminate bending and weeding. Tire gardens are slug free, always stay moist and no sprays are used. The earth remains rich because it is always in the same tire. All you have to do is rotate the plants each year. The growing period is longer by 2 weeks in the spring and another 2 weeks in the fall.” – The Daily Press, July 27, 1983.
Today we hear at least one story a week about windmills. Back in the 1980s Karl built one of his own design with a reflector that would rotate over some of his larger tires so the plants would get equal sunshine on all sides.
To continue with Pat’s letter, “The farm was sold after both my parents died and my brother Don has also passed away. Herb lives in Bancroft. I’m retired from a 35-year teaching career and live with my husband Grant MacDonald on his family farm in Prince Edward Island.”
I know many residents remember the Dorans’ gardens and their wonderful produce. It was people like the Dorans who contributed so much to our rich heritage in this City. Thank you Pat, for helping us to preserve our history and reminding us to recycle and reuse.
That’s my view from Over the Hill.
