Submitted by the Glengarry Agricultural Wall of Fame Committee
The following is a profile of Denny Van Loon who will be inducted into the Glengarry Agricultural Wall of Fame April 25. Other inductees are the Char-Lan Foodgrains Bank members, who were profiled March 11, Robert McDonell, who was profiled March 18, and Marlene Werry, who was profiled March 25..
Denny Van Loon (1926-2019) was born on August 24, 1926.
He was 21 years old when his family (7 boys and 2 girls) left Holland.
They were the first Dutch family to arrive in Glengarry in June, 1947 after World War II. The family was sponsored by Harry Van Dongen who had immigrated to Canada after World War I. The Van Loons came to Glengarry with little more than spending money.
They arrived at Howard Ross’s farm where they worked for $50 a month in wages and were provided with a three-bedroom home to live in. The older members of the family worked at neighbouring farms to help raise money to purchase their own.
Denny worked for Malcolm Cumming and also at the sales barn, for F.C. MacLennan. In 1949, he went to Southwesterm Ontario and worked in the tobacco fields.
In 1951, he came back to Glengarry and rented a farm from Innis MacDonald in Greenfield for one year. In 1952, he married Mary Wettering, and they bought the farm he had been renting.
Denny became a very progressive farmer and started his herd of Holsteins with the prefix “Dutch Acres.” He also started on R.O.P.
Over the years he sold many cattle to F.C. MacLennan and Oran Montgomery. These animals were mainly heifers that were exported to Cuba.
He also sold good milk cows, one being a three-year-old named “Dutch Acres Debbie King” sired by Moersch-Dale Dairy King. She ended up at Bel Terre Holsteins in Norwich, Ontario and this cow went on to make production records for Bel Terre Holsteins for years. He also bred a Seiling Rockman cow named “Dutch Acres Ann Rockman” (classified Very Good) and was one of the foundation cows for the herd. She lived to 18 years of age. He was the first farmer in Glengarry to build a Harvestore silo for high moisture corn and then the following year, another one for haylage.
Before leaving Holland Denny obtained a degree in Agriculture. In Glengarry he completed a farm management course (Program 5), was a member of the Glengarry Holstein Club, Soil and Crop (President in 1975), and the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. He showed at the Crysler Seed show many years and represented Glengarry farmers who had Québec quota at their meetings in Québec. He sold United Seed Corn. Denny semi-retired in 1978 when he sold the dairy farm to his daughter and son-in-law. He then bought a hobby farm and raised beef cows, pigs and chickens. He also grew a large vegetable garden and sold his produce at a roadside stand. He delivered meals on wheels and was a member of the Knights of Columbus.Denny and Mary raised a family of six girls and a boy. Denny worked very hard all his life. Once a farmer, always a farmer.
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