Florence Brandon says The Western Producer had been in her family’s home for generations.
Her grandfather, Bill Howe, began subscribing to the paper relatively close to The Producer’s inception and her father, Harold Howe, later followed suit.
“I don’t know when Dad started subscribing to The Western Producer, but it was there all of my life,” Brandon said.
She remembers family members passing around copies of Western People, a magazine delivered inside the Producer.
“He (Harold) really enjoyed what they used to call Western People, he loved that booklet,” Brandon said.
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“And (I remember) even my aunt asking my grandma for those copies of those magazines. So it’s been part of our lives for years.”
Brandon explained that her mother, Grace, collected quilt patterns The Western Producer once printed within its pages, one block at a time.
“My mom passed away in ’99 and I have a box of her patterns here and I was going through them. And it’s interesting how many of them are still in actual Western Producer envelopes.”
Harold recently celebrated his 90th birthday, but her father’s milestone means more than candles on a cake.
“I think the significant part for me was the fact that my dad raises purebred Red Poll cattle and he’s still raising (them) and he’s still living on the farm,” Brandon said.
“And he’s raised these purebred Red Poll cattle for the past 66 years … because of his first calf crop in 1947.”
In 2011, the Howe family achieved 100 years living on the farm.
Harold gave up his subscription to The Producer a couple of years ago because he wasn’t reading it as much as he used to, though he’s been placing notices for his purebred Red Poll bulls in the livestock section since the spring of 2012, Brandon said.
“Even though he may not have read it from cover to cover, it was a paper that represents that farming background,” Brandon said.
“That’s what my dad represents, to me, that whole farming community that you don’t see in the city. I live in the city (Lethbridge) now; the one thing I miss the most is that rural life.”
Western Producer readers have moulded the farms, villages, towns and cities throughout the West into the rich, vibrant communities we see today.
We’ve enjoyed being there alongside for the past 90 years.
As part of 90th anniversary celebrations, our Tell Us Your Story project invites readers to share their memories and connections.
