Remembering a valuable presence in our farming community
Hugh Burtch wasn’t a man who sought the spotlight, but was still a bright beacon for those who knew and loved him.
Hugh was born in 1935 and raised on the family farm in Boston, Norfolk County. Working on the farm at his dad Howard’s side, Hugh learned about agriculture firsthand, and would make it his lifelong career.
While he was a hard worker, Hugh made time for the people in his life. As a young man, he had his tight-knit gang of friends that everyone called the Boston Boys.
One day, the Boston Boys went to a new roller-skating arena in Simcoe. Little did Hugh know, he was on his way to meet his soul mate.
Joy was “a town girl” raised in Waterford when she went with a group of girlfriends to the arena.
Their romance started off simple and sweet.
“(Hugh had) come over and asked me to roller skate, and Jack’s your uncle,” Joy said with a smile.
The two got married when she was 19 and he was 20.
After high school, Hugh entered a business partnership with his dad on the farm, and in 1957, the couple became the owners of the operation.
“When we bought the farm, it was a dairy farm,” Joy said.
Things went well for a few years before disaster struck in November 1969 in the form of a barn fire.
“We lost everything. The barn, the cattle, the implements, everything. Didn’t have a hammer, even, to clean up the mess,” Joy said.
That didn’t slow Hugh down for long, though.
In her eulogy at Hugh’s funeral, daughter Jill said that just days after the fire, “My dad had a big hole dug and all the remnants were bulldozed into the hole, and that winter, my dad started building a new barn.”
Hugh and Joy decided that rather than resuming dairy farming, they would go back to the farm’s roots.
“His dad always had a peach orchard on the farm, and at that point, Hugh and I decided to go back into peaches,” Joy said. Eventually, they would also grow apples and plums.
“Until the trees started to produce, we started vegetable growing and Hugh would truck vegetables into the Toronto market, to the commission market,” Joy said.
Even that wasn’t a smooth transition, though.
Jill shared the story of how one night in February, Hugh was late coming in for dinner when they heard a knock at the back door.
“There was my dad on his hands and knees. He had fallen from the roof of the new barn onto the frozen ground, and couldn’t stand up, so he crawled … through the snow to the house.”
While doctors determined he’d cracked a couple of vertebrae in his back, Hugh was determined to keep on going; he was back to working in the fields that spring.
Joy recalled, “One thing I admired about Hugh, whenever we had help on the farm, he would never ask anyone to do a job that he would not do himself, and most of the time, he was working alongside them.”
Jill said when they harvested crops, they’d load them into the truck and at the end of the day, Hugh would drive the load into Toronto to sell. He’d get back home around midnight, sleep for a few hours and get up at 6 a.m. to do it all again.
“What I learned from this is, life isn’t fair and it’s not always easy, but when you are dealt a difficult situation, you don’t sit down and cry and feel sorry for yourself; you don’t blame someone or something – you keep moving forwards, one step at a time, one day at a time and eventually you turn a corner and life is good again.”
That was certainly the case for Hugh, because while he had his share of challenges, he also had many happy times, particularly with his family – Joy and their daughters, Judi and Jill – at his side.
“He would deny me and those two girls nothing if it was within reason – and sometimes when it wasn’t,” Joy said with a laugh.
Over the years, the family grew.
Judi and her husband, Joel, had two daughters, Brittany and Hailey, who in turn have their own families (Brittany and her fiancé, Nelius, have sons Hendrix and Halen and Hailey and her husband, Drew, have sons Fyfe and Tait).
Jill and her husband, Gary, had three children: Carly, Brooklyn (who with her husband, Rob, have twins, Hugh and Madilyn) and Davis (whose fiancée is Nicole).
Joy said Hugh loved to spend time with his family, and especially enjoyed playing with his grandkids and great grandkids.
“They would often use his golf cart … He’d be in it, and would they take him on a tour; they pretended they were tour guides, and they’d take him on tours around his own farm,” she said.
Travel was a big part of Hugh and Joy’s life. They went on a number of cruises together, and visited some tropical islands.
Probably the most memorable trip, though, was “the big trip with the whole family to Australia when Brittany was married,” Joy said.
Their travel wasn’t just about globetrotting; there were plenty of days when “We just did the countryside drives,” and would explore their own community, Joy said.
Regardless of what he was putting his efforts towards, Hugh would do it to the best of his abilities, bringing a practical and resourceful approach, Judi said in her eulogy.
She also noted that he was effective when imparting his wisdom to others.
“Dad was a man of few words, but when he spoke, you listened.”
Not only that, but he had a knack for enabling others to act, Judi said.
“He gave clear instructions, then let you take the wheel, so to speak.”
Hugh brought this straightforward, sensible approach to his volunteer work, too.
He was a member of a number of agricultural and community organizations, including the Milk Marketing Board, the Committee of Adjustment for the township, Canadian Order of Foresters and Oakland United Church. Joy said that while he wasn’t in leadership positions with these groups, he was a valued member, who worked steadily in the background.
As much as Hugh was a hard and dedicated worker, he also enjoyed the pleasures of life.
One of his hobbies was watching sports. His favourite teams were the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Buffalo Bills and the Toronto Blue Jays.
He also loved Mustang cars, and his John Deere and Massey Ferguson tractors.
“But what he loved most in life was his family,” Jill said.
Reflecting on the man her husband was, Joy said, “Well, no one is perfect, but using numbers 1 to 10, I would say that I was lucky to live 68 years with a 9, and I know that Judi and Jill, and the rest of the family, would give him a 9 as well!”