librarian said:
Justintime,
Thank you for the information. Studying cattle seems to be the door to a lot of very interesting history and the story of the Cross family in Alberta is perfect example of trails a pedigree will take you to.
Looking at the Cross family history, I read in an archive, that " Sandy Cross was a well-known breeder of Galloway and Shorthorn cattle on Rothney Farm, south of Calgary."
Does anyone know about a Rothney herd of Galloways?
I also see a lot of Calrossie breeding back of Choice Mint. I read a book, Scotch Shorthorn Herds of England Scotland and Wales, by Marston. I liked the geographic approach of the herd descriptions, but it was very clear that WWII had really devastated the breeding stock of Shorthorns in Britain. My education never really got the point across about how WWII changed agriculture in Great Britain forever, but that book certainly painted the picture.
Calrossie Control was kind of the hero of Marston, and I didn't really see why they made so much of him from the photograph of the bull. Maybe the War had a lot to do with the eventual character of the Calrossie cattle that were imported to North America, as you have mentioned in other posts. From Marston's book, it seemed that everyone who had managed to salvage their herds was making a killing exporting seedstock as fast as they could after the War. However, it seemed that during the War, the herds had been scattered and management was inconsistent.
Did this happen in Ireland as well?
Thank you also for relating the size of Choice Mint.
Yes, Sandy Cross actually had 3 purebred herds at Rothney. The Shorthorn herd was the largest and most well known. He also had a purebred Galloway herd and a purebred Luing herd. He imported most of the Galloway and Luing cattle from Scotland to establish these herds.
Sandy Cross was a very interesting man. I never really got to know him very well until he was starting to get close to retirement, other than some short visits with him at some shows and sales. Sandy phoned me just before Christmas in the late 70s and he said he wanted me to come to Calgary because he wanted to discuss something with me. When I asked him what he wanted to discuss he said I would have to come to Calgary to find out. I decided I better head out and see why he had contacted me, so I flew to Calgary on an early morning flight and booked a return flight for later the same night. Sandy picked me up at the airport and took me to the ranch. We spent the entire day driving through all the cattle and all the ranch. He told me how he did not ever want his beloved ranch to become a part of the city and be covered with pavement and homes. He told me that he wanted to sell all the cattle and he asked me if I would purchase 300 of the Shorthorn cows. He told me that he would sell me 300 cows at $300 each. I asked him what he would ask if I was to pick out a smaller group and he said if I took less than 150 head he wanted $500 per head, and if I only wanted to hand pick a few out they would be priced at $800 and up. I told him I would go home and talk with my father about this.
I already knew what my answer would be but I came home and phoned Sandy a couple days later. I told him we just couldn't accept his offer. I saw Sandy Cross about a year later, and he asked me why I had turned down his offer. I told him that there were several reasons, those being we did not have the feed, or the money or the pasture to run this many more cows. At the time we were already running over 300 cows ourselves and feeding 800-1000 feeder cattle besides. When I told this to Sandy, he said... well why didn't you tell me this. He said that he could have kept them there for the winter and he really didn't need the money and we could have worked out some kind of deal on them. He said he could have made arrangements to leave the cattle there through the next summer as well.
As a side note, I was in total awe when I stayed in his home on that trip. I ended up missing my plane that night as Sandy was still showing me the ranch when I should have been at the airport. I went home the next evening. The walls of his home were covered with original Charles Russell paintings, and I expect they would be valued in the millions. Sandy and I sat and talked long into the night and he told me many stories of his travels around the world ( well he told me what he could remember!) Sandy Cross also had owned Calgary Brewery for many years and was their best customer, and he was a very bad alcoholic for many years. Sandy told me that after he sobered up he found in his records that he had gone around the world on 3 different occasions and he had no memory of a single day of these trips . Sandy Cross never married until he was about 70 years old. When he asked his wife Ann if she would marry him, she said she would agree to marry him but only if he never took another alcoholic drink. Alcohol never touched his lips from that day on. Quite a story really. Sandy took Ann on another trip around the world which took several months when they got married, and he remembered this trip.
When Sandy died, he left the Rothney ranch ( which was 49 sections or over 31000 acres) to the Alberta government as a wildlife and conservation park for several generations into the future. I can't remember if he left the entire ranch or just a major portion of it. The ranch was a solid block of land- 7 miles by 7 miles. Today the city of Calgary is spreading around the Rothney ranch. Sandy definitely knew what would happen to his ranch if he did not ensure it could not be developed by the fast growing city of Calgary.
