This coming year, it will have been 40 years since the Gerber family made the long journey from their homeland of Switzerland to a farm just west of Fort Frances.
In 1961, Johannes Gerber, along with his wife and 12 children, left their home of Basel, in the northwest corner of Switzerland, and travelled to Fort Frances, where they bought a farm along River Road that has gone on to serve both the family and community well over the past four decades.
Within a few years of their arrival in the district, the Gerber family began to bring the fruits of their labours into town to be sold at local grocery stores and farmers’ markets.
This tradition, which began with their father, Johannes, has continued up to present day with his children selling Gerber eggs and produce to local merchants in town.
Even today, Gerber eggs can be seen on the shelves of stores like Safeway. And though many grocers have come and gone, the Gerbers have remained a permanent fixture in the community.
“My grandfather was one of the last farmers in Basel to still be farming the land when I was a boy,” Mark Gerber said recently while recalling the events that led up to his family’s decision to move to Canada.
“Land prices had become so high that it was becoming impossible for anyone to make a living as a farmer,” he noted. “My father [Johannes] wanted to continue farming, just as his father had, but he knew he would not be able to do it in Basel.”
With no option except to move, the Gerber family sold most of their belongings for 10,000 francs, and the rest of their things were packed in Singer sewing machine boxes readied for the trip to Canada.
Initially, the family’s request was denied but Johannes Gerber refused to give up and an appeal was made to Steinbach, Man. M.P. W.H. Jorgenson.
“Mr. Jorgenson took the appeal to Ottawa and it took a whole year before we heard anything,” Gerber said.
Having sold their belongings, and with no place to go, the Gerbers stayed with an uncle until word finally came that they would be allowed to move.
“My father had a great deal of faith in God,” Gerber stressed. “He would always tell us that God would make it come out all right in the end. I think that is really what kept us going.”
As children, Mark Gerber can remember how excited he and his brothers were about moving to a new country.
“When we went to the Canadian Embassy to speak to immigration about moving, they had given us pamphlets and books on farming in Canada,” he remembered. “In Switzerland you had to do everything by hand but in Canada, they had tractors and balers.
“As boys, we were very excited about getting to ride on a tractor and use all of the machines.”
One day, a brown envelope arrived in the mail from the Canadian Agricultural Department that said they were considering the case and that there was a chance the family would be accepted.
“Fourteen days later, word came that we had been accepted and would be allowed to go to Canada, as long as we all passed a medical examine,” Gerber said.
Checked over by both a Swiss and Canadian doctor, the children received a clean bill of health and the family was on their way to their new home.
“We took the railroad to France and then La Havre, where we boarded the ship,” recalled Gerber. “It was a Greek ship called the S.S. Arkadia and it looked like a whole town coming across the water.
“There was about 2,000 people on board.”
From the start of their train ride in Switzerland, the Gerber children had been instructed by their father not to eat anything because the money they had needed to be saved to buy the farm in Canada.
“My father told us that once we boarded the ship, we would be able to eat because the food was included in the cost of the ticket,” said Gerber. “We believed our father so when we got on the boat and I saw a table full of sandwiches, I ran over and took some and began to eat them.
“I don’t think I even stopped to say ‘Grace,’ I was just so hungry.
“Before I knew it, I heard someone yelling at me. I looked and it was the ship’s steward chasing me away, telling me that I was eating the food for first class.”
While waiting to embark, Mark Gerber and his brothers took inventory of the lifeboats that were on board, making sure they would be enough for everyone if disaster were to strike.
“We ran all over the ship counting the lifeboats to see if there were enough,” he noted. “There were not enough and I remember thinking that there was no way that everyone was going to fit in the lifeboats they had.
“It is funny to think that we did that but I guess boys are like that.”
After seven days travelling by ship across the Atlantic, the family reached the St. Lawrence River and on to port at Quebec City.
“In August of 1961, we departed from the boat in Quebec City and then went through Canadian customs. I remember them spraying our shoes with a disinfectant–they did that with all the farmers,” Gerber noted.
The family then boarded the ship again to make the final trip down the St. Lawrence to Montreal, where they would then take a train to Winnipeg.
“We took the CNR for two or three days into Winnipeg,” Gerber said. “Again, our father told us not to eat anything because we had to save our money.
“At the stops we made along the way, Father would get out and buy us some cheese and bread to eat. I remember looking at this orange cheese and soft bread and wondering what it was.
“I had never seen anything like it before.”
Eventually, they arrived in Greenland, Man., where they were met by three cars that took them to their temporary home in the country. But while they stayed and worked in Manitoba, Johannes Gerber began to look for a home elsewhere.
“He was not having much luck so he went to immigration and asked them to help,” Gerber said. “They told him that they wanted him to settle down in Rainy River. So one day they drove him out to Fort Frances and showed him around.
“He loved it because it had trees and forests. Manitoba was too wide open and it made him homesick for Basel.”
Buying the Lowe property on River Road, the Gerbers moved into the sprawling farm on Nov. 20 1961.
“The day we moved in, it snowed and snowed,” Gerber recalled. “It was a broken down farm. My brother and I had to shovel a half-mile road to look for dry wood to heat the house with.”
Though the family suffered through many hardships over the years, including the death of their son, Daniel, they managed to persevere and establish themselves as one of the leading farming families in the area.
“We used to sell our milk to Flinders Dairy,” Mark Gerber said. “I can even remember one winter Mr. Flinders calling us to tell us that the town had no milk. There had been a very bad storm and Mr. Flinders needed us to bring in milk right away.
“We told him that if he gave us a snowplow, we would bring it. Sure enough, he sent the plow and we sent the milk.”
In addition to their work as farmers, the Gerbers also have been responsible for bringing Christmas trees to town and hosting school tours at their farm.
“It took us 10 years to build up our farm,” Gerber noted. “Our first few years were very hard. We got discouraged very easily and we were sure that God was not blessing us in our new home.
“But in the end, we are all very thankful that our father decided to bring us here. I think he was a very courageous man to have taken on what he did.
“He managed to take a tree, pull it out at its roots and replant it somewhere else.”