“I went to school in North Bay, and I loved it up there, but it wasn’t home and no other house has ever felt like home to me,” he said of the 1890-vintage house.
Nothing says Southwestern Ontario quite as much as its signature old yellow-brick homes, like the three-storey Cron house, many built with brick made on the spot from clay deposits found along the region’s rivers.
The Cron farm also reflects the profile of many smaller family farms in the region, which survive despite the soaring costs of farming – off-farm jobs are almost essential – and the trend to smaller families, often with fewer children interested in staying on the land.
A toolmaker by profession, with an off-farm job, Cron farmed the property himself for years, raising wheat, corn and white beans. He also raised cattle and at one point had 200 dairy goats. Today, the family rents out the cornfields and no longer actively farms, but still keeps horses.
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