ST. JEAN BAPTISTE, Man. – The Sabourin name is stamped all over this small French town in the middle of the Red River Valley.
Not only does the name adorn a number of local businesses, but wherever you go, you run into a Sabourin.
That’s especially true at St. Jean Farm Days, a popular event that is held every year at the start of January. Sabourins are everywhere.
It’s a typical situation in Manitoba’s small French Roman Catholic towns, where two or three generations of 10-plus children per family can make a family name common.
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But one particular branch of the extended Sabourin family is especially evident at this show. When you enter the hall you run into Lucille Sabourin at the registration desk. Over to the left, in the kitchen or along the food line, her husband, Gilles, is stirring or serving pea soup and making sure everyone who attends is well fed.
Around the exhibition hall or in the presentation room, Gilles’s and Lucille’s son, Gilbert, is making sure everything is running smoothly. At lunch, his three children appear after getting permission to leave school to attend the farm show.
“We’re a very community-oriented family,” said Gilbert, who lives on the homestead quarter his great-grandfather, Leonard, established in 1912.
“We like things happening in this community.”
St. Jean Baptiste’s winter farm show is doing better than many. This year, about 200 people attended the first day and the second day looked to match it. This is a mark of pride for the Sabourins, because they helped found the show 23 years ago.
“We’ve had a lot of fun doing it,” said Lucille, during a break in the action at the registration desk.
“We have wanted to quit and bring in some new blood, but here we are, still at the door,” she said with a laugh.
“You can’t get out of these things that easily.”
Establishing and helping run St. Jean Farm Days was not something the Sabourins did because they had nothing else to do. Gilles and Gilbert, who farm together, generally crop about 3,000 acres, which is a good-sized farm in the rich land of the Red River Valley. They grow soybeans, canola, tall fescue, corn and sunflowers, as well as the more regular wheat, oats and barley.
Gilles farmed with his brother for years, but took over the operation about two decades ago. That’s when Lucille started running one of the family’s two combines. Gilles had run a Chrysler dealership in St. Jean Baptiste between 1970 and 1980.
He was also a Manitoba Pool Elevators delegate for 12 years and spent eight years as a municipal councillor.
Lucille worked on the farm and with local schools.
The couple, who have been married 41 years, have four children. Their two daughters live and work in Winnipeg. One son became an electrician.
“He makes a lot more money than a farmer,” noted Gilles wryly.
Right now Gilles is winding down his role in the family farm. He’s turning 66 this year. He and Lucille already live in town, so he’s relieved that he won’t have to go through the house-moving disruption.
His original choice to move to town wasn’t planned, however. The 1997 flood didn’t destroy the family house – 8,000 sandbags saved it – but the basement was cracked and ruined. At that point moving to town seemed to make sense, if a bit premature.
“At 55 I thought that I was too young to move to town, but I’m glad I did it then,” said Gilles.
The first Sabourin in the district arrived in 1891 and some Sabourins will be farming here for many decades to come. But will any of them be from Gilles’s and Lucille’s branch? Right now Gilbert’s children are too young to reveal whether tilling the soil will be a lifelong passion.
“You have to love farming to stay a farmer,” said Lucille.
“If you don’t really like farming you’ll quit along the way. You have to love this life.”
Gilles said he’s getting used to the idea of becoming a senior and doing less. But he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to back away from St. Jean Farm Days.
“I’m cutting down, except for this thing,” he said.
