Keoma Garage
Cockshutt and White Dealership and White Rose Gas Station
Tractor dealerships were an integral part of agriculture and their communities, but their histories are underreported in Alberta. Also underdeveloped are the stories of the women who were business owners and who kept the books, and the house, and drove everywhere, and raised their children, and who, like farm women, shared in the hard work and the risks associated with running a business. Children also worked alongside their parents, taking on adult responsibilities at exceptionally young ages – and doing them extraordinarily well. The Gerbrandt family ran the Keoma Garage from 1961 to 1980, and their story is an excellent example of what can be an invisible story.
Henry Gerbrandt always wanted to be a mechanic; his father had been a machinist, and Henry was said to have a very logical mind. He met his future wife Mildred because their families were friends at the church they attended in Calgary, and the pair married in 1950.
Henry worked for Stampede Pontiac, but when he completed his mechanical training, he wanted to use his skills more widely. In 1961, he spotted an ad for a garage for sale in a place called Keoma, Alberta.
Keoma is located two kilometres from Highway 9, and you might be hard pressed to locate it on a map or to recall driving past it, even if you’ve done so repeatedly on the way to Drumheller. It was once situated on the old route of Highway 9, which was extensively altered in the 1950s. Today the highway passes right between the communities of Kathyrn and Keoma. Many villages had been self sufficient little places in the early twentieth century, with railway stops, general stores, grain elevators, and tractor dealerships. For instance, in 1961, there were also Cockshutt dealers located at Langdon Corner, Rockyford and Beiseker.
By 1961, the grain elevators were the only other industries in Keoma, but the train came once a week, and the Greyhound Bus stopped at Keoma Corner. There was a ball diamond and a big community hall. But it was the Cockshutt dealership, which also featured the White Rose gas station, that was the lone local business. White Rose was a Canadian company, and that appealed to Henry, although it was promptly bought out by Shell in 1962. There were two gas pumps, five underground fuel tanks, and people stopping for gas could also purchase cigarettes or chocolate bars.
The Keoma Garage itself had its own storied history. Built in 1912, it had once been the Canadian Pacific Railway station in Nightingale, Alberta. Relocated to Keoma in 1941 after that station closed, it had two parts, the residence and the large freight building that was used as the shop. The CPR was notorious for its lack of creature comforts, infamously putting together buildings without insulation. When the Gerbrandts arrived with five young children (Millicent, Ron, Ken, Joyce and Barbara) in tow, the building still didn’t have insulation. It would also be five years before they got running water, and in the meantime, they were heating water for laundry on the stove. Once they drilled a new well, the Gerbrandts had “the best water in the whole area” but that was going to be years in the future. At least the building had electricity, with the heating supplied by a single standalone heater. The telephone was a party line, shared with seventeen other families. Extensive renovations were in the future, including pouring a concrete floor in the large shop.
Cockshutt would eventually turn into White Farm Equipment. Swathers, combines, and tractors arrived preassembled, but as a twelve-year-old, Ron Gerbrandt was already fixing brakes and building equipment. Ron said that the greatest hits for Cockshutt during the 1960s and 70s included cultivators and combines. He also said that 4 x 4 tractors were growing in demand as farms grew and farmers spent more time in the field.
The dealership was located on a large plot of land (today, many of the subdivisions in Keoma are built on land that once belonged to the Gerbrandts). Henry planted his own 20-acre crop. He used it to demo products like balers and swathers. The Gerbrandts also owned cattle and pigs. Henry bought a house for their staff to live in, employing a mechanic called Ken Olsen for seven years. Other locals and neighbour kids also worked for the Gerbrandts.
A year in the life of a tractor dealer had two critical seasons, with seeding and harvest being the most crucial, a literal race against time. Farmers planted different varieties of grain in a strategic effort to have the crops reach maturity at different rates, but harvest presented annual challenges. The months of September and October passed in a blur. If farmers needed something at 3.00 a.m., they counted on Henry and Ron to get up. Supper could be a sparse ten-minute affair, then back out for the next shift.
The season of rest was winter. Cockshutt and later White offered bonuses to dealers who met certain sale levels. Henry won trips to places like Los Angeles and Barbados. The excursions were typically three days long and were a way for the companies to introduce their latest product line, but they doubled as a short holiday.
When asked about memorable products sold at Keoma Garage, Ron recalled an unusual item: snowmobiles. Allied Farm Equipment sold the Hustler and the Rustler. Both were choring models, intended for hauling feed and tools. However, when Allied switched to distributing the recreational brand Polaris, it opened a new product line. It attracted Ron, who raced snowmobiles for two years. Competitions were held on frozen lakes and the occasional racetrack in rural communities, and Ron picked up many medals and trophies. Contests were held as far away as Wetaskiwin and Golden, B. C. One exciting event was held at the Calgary Stampede Grounds.
Used snowmobiles were a popular option for customers, with perhaps one new snowmobile being sold annually. The snowmobiles certainly set the Keoma Garage apart, with neighbours recalling them years later, and Henry once traded a new snowmobile for a boat!
Anyone in the family who could drive was the parts delivery person. A story that looms large in Gerbrandt family lore was a particularly hectic day in the depths of harvest that required not one, not two, but THREE trips to the big Cockshutt warehouse off Barlow Trail in Calgary.
Even as a thirteen-year-old, Ron recalled that he had a different relationship with adults in his community. He was answering the phone, finding parts for them and repairing their machinery. A famer calling the Keoma Garage might talk to Henry or to Ron, but either person would be able to help. If a customer ran out of the fuel needed to heat their home on a frigid winter night, Ron was driving the fuel truck to the rescue. He overhauled his first engine at age fifteen. In his “spare time”, he was also the janitor at the Keoma Community Hall. The maturity and life experience eventually would serve Ron well in his career as a police officer.
Amid the bustle, a very dramatic incident occurred. Ron and eight-year-old Ken were burning garbage in a pot-bellied stove. Recalling the thrilling whoosh they had seen when a counsellor had ignited a fire at summer camp a few weeks previously, they tried oil and then gas hoping for a similar result. Instead, Ken was severely burned and spent a year in the hospital with a single “holiday” home over Christmas. Today, Ken is a healthy man who had a meaningful career in health care, uniquely suited to support patients who were dealing with frightening and painful injuries.
Alberta farmers are certainly familiar with picking up the pieces after intense storms, and on one extremely memorable occasion, the Gerbrandts found themselves in that situation. In the late 1970s a tornado struck, and while it didn’t touch down, it peeled the roof off of a building. A huge Polaris sign plummeted from its post, smashing into a brand-new car on the way to the ground. The family wondered aloud if they ought to go to the basement, but by then the incident was over, thankfully without injuries, although there had been significant damage.
As hard as Henry and the entire family had worked to make the Keoma Garage a success, Ron believes that his father barely made a living. In 1980, Henry got a job teaching at Southern Alberta Institute of Technology. He had applied on several occasions, and finally made a phone call asking for clarification about why he was not getting the jobs. It turned out that human resources had the impression that he was working in an office, instead of as a mechanic who could literally fix anything. He was called in for an interview and got a position. While Ron believes that Henry was emotional about letting go of the business that he had fought so hard to keep afloat, needed changes were on the horizon.
The history of the Keoma Garage and Gerbrandt family reveals just how different life in small town Alberta was even fifty years ago. Little communities were more self contained and self reliant than they are today, and neighbours were customers and service providers as well as friends you saw at church or the baseball diamond.
The memories of people who worked so hard to make their businesses a success, and particularly the reflections of young adults like Ron deserve to be highlighted. Anyone who grew up with a family store or a restaurant will likely understand just how much life revolves around that business. Vacations and leaving work at 5.00 p.m. are experiences that happen to other people’s families.
The other interesting piece is how much major centres like Calgary and the development of major highways had on those businesses. Many people in the “KIK” area today may live in Keoma, Irricana or Kathyrn, but they shop and work in Calgary or Airdrie. As far as tractor dealerships go, Cockshutt and White have been absorbed into the American-owned giant AGCO, and the nearest current location is Agriterra Equipment in Crossfield, Alberta, nearly 50 kilometres away from Keoma.
Thank you to Ron Gerbrandt and his family for their recollections and to Shelly McElroy for preparing this story. Thanks also to the Historical Society of Alberta for their funding support.
