© 2022, Christian Cassidy
Place: Riverbend Dairy Farm
Address: 2433 St. Mary's Road
Constructed: 1933
Riverbend Dairy Farm began operations in the early 1930s when George R. Gobert bought 257 acres of unbroken land on St. Mary’s Road in St. Vital. Today, the buildings are fenced off and awaiting demolition to make way for an expanded traffic interchange at St. Mary's Road and the Perimeter Highway.
Here's a look back before they're gone...
May 24, 1975, Winnipeg Free Press
Gobert came to Manitoba from his native Belgium in 1920 and operated West Flanders Dairy on Clarence Street in the town of Tuxedo with two of his brothers. In 1932, he and his wife Edith whom he married in 1928, purchased a lot on St. Mary's Road to go into business for themselves.
The following year, they erected a house and a barn large enough to accommodate 40 cows and eight horses on the property. The house featured many amenities, including an indoor bathroom, and was said to have cost more to build than the barn, something unheard of at the time.
To get their portion of the Flanders herd to their new property, the Goberts walked the cattle across the Elm Park Bridge, through Kingston Crescent, and down St. Mary's Road. The operation took place at 4:00 am to avoid traffic and they were charged a toll of ten cents per head to cross the bridge - the same rate as humans.
George Gobert’s first public foray into politics came in December 1934 when he appealed the City of St. Vital's assessed value of his house and barn. Farmers received special property tax exemptions for buildings on their land, but that did not extend to dairy operations.
Gobert won his case in Court of King's Bench in February 1935 and farmers and dairy operators were treated equally under the assessment laws. (Gobert would go on to serve on the St. Vital municipal council from 1955 into the early 1960s.)
May 24, 1975, Winnipeg Free Press
Riverbend Dairy Farm began selling milk to customers in the St. Vital area by horse and cart in 1934 and added a motorized vehicle by the end of the decade.
The herd soon grew to 60 head to keep up with demand.
October 5, 1936, Winnipeg Tribune
The Goberts showed some of their prized cattle and horses at agricultural fairs across southern Manitoba and garnered numerous awards. Rockwood Romanuk, for instance, was the all-Canadian champion three-year-old bull at the Toronto Winter Fair in 1954 and the senior champion and grand champion bull the following year in Brandon.
One of their cows, No. 218903, made the news in 1936 when she gave birth to triplets
(believed to be a one in 100,000 birth event). They named the calves
Frankie, Fannie, and Patsy.
The family were supporters of the St. Vital Boys and Girls Calf Club and hosted many events for the organization at their farm. Reporting on a September 1940 calf exhibition, one reporter noted, "The great dairy farm with its colony of buildings is quite a site in itself."
August 21, 1943, Winnipeg Tribune
The Winnipeg Tribune's Verena Garrioch visited Riverbend Dairy Farm in 1943 for a story about young children who had to fill in on family farms as older siblings fought in the war. She met Helen, Phyllis, and George Jr., ages 10 to 14, who assisted with the dairy operation and tended the fields of corn and barley using heavy machinery.
It was not long after this story that the Goberts sold off their cattle in favour of growing crops as finding labour for the dairy portion of their business became too difficult as the war dragged on.
The family wasn't in their new venture long when the devastating Red River flood of 1950 struck and submerged much of St. Vital's farmland under water for weeks.
The water did a great deal of damage to the Gobert's fields, covering them in debris and causing deep gullies to form. It made planting and harvesting extremely difficult.
After a few years of poor harvests, the family decided that they had to get back into the dairy business.
January 20, 1972, Winnipeg Tribune
This time around, Riverbend was a commercial supplier of milk to Royal Dairies on Cambridge Street, though it did continue to sell "medically certified raw milk" on a cash and carry basis from the farm to select customers for the next two decades.
In 1970, George Gobert retired from the business and it was left to his sons, Gerard and George Jr., to carry on operations without him. When he died in January 1975 at the age of 74, the family decided to wind down operations for good.(Edith, George Sr.'s wife, lived to be 101 and died in 2006).
Riverbend Dairy Farm's last day as a commercial dairy was April 1, 1975.
The land was then sold to Qualico Developments who developed the River Park South subdivision on part of the property. The section containing the house, barn and other outbuildings was leased back to the family.
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