Dreams

My father loved what he did on the farm. His sister told me that it was always his desire to move to Canada to farm. I am not sure when his grandfather told him of his plan to buy a farm and why my father had always been a part of that dream. My father graduated from agricultural school and almost immediately thereafter moved to Canada. He was 18 years old.
The picture shows my father sitting on the car with the pipe that unfortunately would become a permanent feature. He is at the school of agriculture with his classmates. He was a serious student as depicted by his notebooks from the time. One wonders how much of what he learned he was able to use on his grandfather's farm. The other picture portrays one of the farms my father worked on. Quite a contrast to the horses on the farm in Canada.
My father moved to Geneva when he was very young. His father had died and his mother decided to leave Montreal to live with her mother-in-law. Renee was about 24 years old and had three children under the age of six. They did grow up in the heart of the city but had exposure to the country when visiting his Uncle's summer home in Hermance, a small village outside of Geneva. The house bordered a river and a forest. My father did not however grow up with animals. The only animal I have seen as part of the family are rabbits which I think they used as food. It is my grandmother in the picture holding one of their baby rabbits. My father developed this passion for farming in this environment with the promise of a farm from his grandfather in Canada.