Douglas Brownlow
1988
Douglas Brownlow was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire, England in 1909 and came to Canada when a few months old. They landed at Montreal and relocated to a homestead north of Maymont, Saskatchewan. He lost his father while a small boy but attended country schools near Birch Hills and Domremy, grade school in Prince Albert and then high school in Saskatoon.
A certain Elsa Weir lived across the back fence in Saskatoon and they married December 31, 1929. They have one daughter, Pat.
Doug took short courses at the University in Beekeeping and under Professor Baker took poultry. He worked for J.H. Speers Seed and Feed in Saskatoon and in 1928 was employed by Saskatchewan Poultry Pool in Saskatoon and then Regina. After 1½ years back with Speers under Pat Duncan, he rejoined the Poultry Pool for 5 years as manager of the Assiniboia office. He then served as Poultry Inspector for Agriculture Canada under D.L. Brown for 3 years. After a few months with the Pool, he worked for Canada Packers in Montreal and as manager at Perth, Ontario.
In 1941, he persuaded a reluctant Canadian Air Force of their need for him and topped his class at Service Flying Schools in Quebec. While waiting for his overseas posting, he became an instructor and was sent to Yorkton for almost 3 years. He finally made it to England in 1944 for a year and then returned to Canada, civilian life and bought what was to be a capon farm near Vancouver. While there, he accepted a job selling and installing an automatic egg stamping device on Melborne egg graders. He spent the next months from Victoria to Quebec working on commission. Saskatchewan finally won out. He came to Saskatchewan Cooperative Creameries in February 1947 to be greeted by one of the greatest prairie blizzards on record. He was employed as supervisor of all the egg and poultry operations and later as manager of the Poultry Department and the truck fleet operations. He retired in 1974 but was persuaded to manage the Saskatchewan Chicken Producers Marketing Board for a few months, until August 1977.
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He was a busy man who spanned the era from live poultry train cars to Montreal, through New York dressed poultry on the farm and then to fully eviscerated table ready poultry. He served in the top executive capacities of the Saskatchewan, Western Canadian and Canadian Produce Councils as well as the Saskatchewan Poultry Council. He served his country and his industry well and willingly with little fanfare. You can’t ask much more of any man.