JULY 24, 1920 – NOVEMBER 6, 2017
Farmer; Second World War veteran; International Plowing Match and Rural Expo enthusiast. Born July 24, 1920. Died, aged 97, on Nov. 6, 2017 in Mitchell.
Norman Dow used to tell a story about the pig who rode with him in the cab of an army truck he drove in Italy during the Second World War.
The piglet appeared as a practical joke in the bed of an unfavoured corporal, Norman reported once to The Memory Project, a Historica Canada platform. “The (men) decided that, since I was a farmer, I probably knew how to look after it,” he said. The animal eventually served soldiers of his unit as Christmas dinner in 1944.
A Perth County dairyman and cash cropper, Dow passed away in November.
“Basically (Norman) was cutting wood in winter ... and doing farm work in the summer ... well before 1942 when he signed up,” for war service, his son, Ernest, said in an interview.
His father kept a trophy from the 1941 International Plowing Match and Rural Expo (IPM) where he won in novice competition. In 2013, at the age of 93, Norman helped open the IPM when it returned to Perth County.
Terry Daynard, a former neighbour and former University of Guelph crop scientist, described Norman as an “excellent farmer – one who excelled in both crops and dairying, and a leader in organizations for both.”
Dow family photo
Written by Jim Algie.
Originally published in the February 2018 edition of Better Farming.