‘I started out to be a farmer, I didn’t end up that way’

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Published on Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Submitted photos. Roy McGillivray and his wife Joan on their wedding day.

By Tony Eu

Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

Roy McGillivray was born on June 9, 1932, in the same farmhouse as his father. Located seven miles southwest of Neepawa, he attended school at Glendale, a quarter mile west of their property.

“I was lucky, I only had a quarter mile to walk,” McGillivray noted, “some had over three miles to walk.”

Growing up during World War II didn’t have a great impact on McGillivray, though he does have a couple interesting stories about the pilots training in the area. Flying the de Havilland DH.82 Tiger Moth training plane, pilots would fly low to the ground, just above the heads of people walking through fields.

“When the war was on, I used to go for the cattle and I’d walk down a fence line, because I saw the bottom of more Tiger Moths about the height of the ceiling… There were a bunch of them at the airport at that time,” McGillivray mentioned. Continuing to talk about his close calls with the aircraft, he said, “They were everywhere, they came in low and close to the ground if they saw anything out in the fields. Anybody that’s older around here would remember what went on.” 

For those of us who weren’t around during that time, McGillivray explained, “They came in about the height of the ceiling or a little higher, [about 10 feet]. I guess maybe they weren’t as close as [they] seemed, but they sure looked pretty black on the bottom when you looked up at them.”

McGillivray then shared a story that wasn’t quite as light hearted. “I saw two of them, they were playing chicken. They were about a mile up the field and they both got killed,” he said. “I don’t know what they did. They didn’t do what they were supposed to do, but they were playing chicken and they didn’t succeed,” he added.

Witnessing plane crashes and dodging low flying aircraft weren’t the only things McGillivray did as a kid though. “For fun, we played a lot of baseball and some hockey… There wasn’t too much at that time, there was no television or anything,” he remarked.

In 1946, at 14 years old and having just completed Grade 8, McGillivray began to work full time on the farm with his father. In September of 1950, while working as the caretaker for the school in Glendale, McGillivray met Joan Sage. Sage had come to teach at the school and she and McGillivray were soon dating. By Aug. 11, 1951, they were happily married.

McGillivray’s plans were always to become a farmer, however, life had other plans for him, setting him on a new path with a turn of events in 1959.

Leaving the farm life

“I was living on the farm six miles west of here and [a fellow from Minnedosa] knew I called square dances. They were having a barn dance west of Minnedosa in June or July of 1959. He wanted a caller because the one that he had booked for that night had got sick,” he began. “In those days, it was traditional to have a [set of two square dances] before lunch and a set of two after. When I came down from the stage on the second call, [auctioneer]Wilf Sandstrom was at the bottom of the stairs. He wanted to know if I could help him with a sale for Johnny Harding on Oct. 6, 1959. I said, ‘I don’t know anything about auctioneering’ and he said, ‘Well, anybody that can call a square dance like that can auctioneer’.” 

After the auction on Oct. 6, McGillivray didn’t hear from Sandstrom again until March of 1960.

“[Sandstrom] drove in the yard one day and he had a little piece of paper. He said, ‘I’ll put this in the paper if you agree’ and it was, ‘Sandstrom and McGillivray Auction Service’. He said, ‘We’ll split everything down the middle’,” McGillivray shared.

This unexpected opportunity led McGillivray to continue along this new career path for the next 20 years.

Along with auctioneering, McGillivray also started selling farm machinery for William Whitmore Ltd. in 1960. When Whitmore retired, the GM dealer in town asked if McGillivray would switch to selling cars along with auctioneering. In the next five years he managed to sell 984 vehicles.

As for his auctioneering business, McGillivray said, “We had just a little over 1,000 sales in the 20 years I was selling. A lot of people were moving, farms were getting bigger and they were moving out to BC, a lot of them.”

When asked if he had any interesting stories from auctioneering, he replied, “I should have wrote a book… There were a lot of interesting stories, a lot of good people.” He made a brief mention of the largest sale he ever dealt with, saying, “The largest sale we had was at McCreary. It was caused by a grandfather taking his two grandchildren out on a fishing trip on Lake Dauphin and they drowned. All three of them. Of course, they had the auction sale at the farm.”

In 1970, McGillivray opened his own store, the Neepawa Auction Centre. After eight years though, the business evolved into selling new furniture and became Neepawa Furniture Centre. He ran the store until he retired, at which point his son took over.

However, while McGillivray ran the store, he and his wife were able to go on numerous trips around the world. “They were with the suppliers, they were bedding suppliers and electronics suppliers,” he explained as to how they went on these trips.

Globe trotters

“[We] had trips every year, [with] different companies. We were to Hawaii twice in one year and Bermuda and Costa del Sol [in Spain],” McGillivray added. “They were all interesting. They were short trips, they were one week trips, they were great,” he said about the experiences. “We spent a week in Bermuda, rented a motorcycle and Joan rode with me, because I had a motorcycle when I was younger,” he said about one of the trips.

During one of the trips to Hawaii, the McGillivrays went on their own little adventure. “For about $2, we got on the local bus and went around the island. We went through all the little villages and everything. It was just the fact that we stepped on a local bus and went for a ride,” McGillivray remarked.

The McGillivrays once hosted a Rotary exchange student, who, in McGillivray’s own words, “sort of became our adopted son.” The student was from Brazil and both Roy and Joan have been to Brazil multiple times.

One of their trips took place in 1990 and lasted about a month, during which time they traveled all over Brazil. “We had a pass to fly anywhere in Brazil. It was just about the end of the passes, they discontinued them shortly after we were there,” McGillivray noted. While in Brazil, they spent three days in the Amazon rain forest. “We spent the nights in hammocks and the howler monkeys and stuff were pretty active,” he remarked.

A set of pictures of Iguazu Falls taken by Roy McGillivray during his month long trip in Brazil.

“We went to that big falls, Iguazu Falls, that was sure interesting,” McGillivray said, “It was right on the corner of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay.” He continued sharing tidbits from his trip, noting that, “It was just at the time when their currency [value] was changing. It changed three times in one day.” 

As a final mention on the trip, McGillivray said, “We went to the Carnival [of Brazil], got home at 9 o’clock in the morning. Like I said, it was so many things, it was interesting.”

More than business and travel

Not only was McGillivray a successful business owner and world traveller, he was heavily involved with local politics as well.

First elected to town council in 1983, he served on the council for nine straight years before running for mayor in 1992. He was elected that year and then re-elected by acclamation in 1995, retiring from town politics in 1998. At the time, terms were three years, instead of the four-year terms we have now.

“My first year that I was on council we were tramping around through grass out by the airport and all over the place with the Springhill Hutterites, where they were going to build this big hog plant,” McGillivray mentioned. “They were going to build this big plant that eventually, someday, would kill 1,000 hogs a day, which was unheard of as far as we were concerned in [1983],” he remarked, adding, “They’re doing a lot more now and they’re going to do a lot more.”

In addition, he was the mayor when the Lily Festival was founded.

As far as his view on current politics, McGillivray said, “It was good in our day, but it’s not good today. There’s too many people [who] want to have a say but don’t want to take part. [Too many people] telling others what to do and not doing it themselves.”

Along with his work in local politics, McGillivary went to Mexico with the Manitoba government on a trade mission in 1998. Linking that mission with a recent event, he said, “This Mexican deal that just came back here, we did the same thing in 1998. I signed a deal to twin with Ciudad Guzmán.”

McGillivray went on to explain his experience with the trade mission, saying, “They came back here the next spring and we had a big breakfast for them out here on the deck. I set it up in Mexico, in fact I was in Guadalajara, that’s where we stayed. We had a police escort from Guadalajara down to Ciudad Guzmán, which was probably an hour, hour and a half drive. Then they came back and toured the hog plant here and [they were] interested in the pork rind.” 

Linking the past and the present once again, McGillivray remarked, “This was in 1998 and 2016 these guys were here, still interested in pork rind.”

Not about the money

Throughout his life, McGillivray has volunteered an incredible number of hours to community organizations, including as the president of numerous boards.

He has been the president of the Neepawa Figure Skating Club, the Chamber of Commerce and both the Franklin and Neepawa square dance club, though not at the same time. He has also served on the Franklin Pool Elevator board, the Manitoba Building Standards board and as part of the fund raising committee for Country Meadows.

His volunteer work doesn’t end as desk positions though. As well as coaching minor baseball and running both the Ducks Unlimited Banquet Auction for over 30 years and Rotary Auctions for 55 years, he also made a video for the Neepawa Centennial, in 1983. “My son and I, we went up for the Neepawa Centennial and then we showed [a video of the Mountain Road Church fire] in the Mountain Road Hall,” McGillivray shared. “I think there were eight tapes made and I think they were all lost but one, the one we had.”

Present projects

This February, McGillivray was recognized for 50 years of membership in the Neepawa Rotary Club, though he’s been involved for an extra five years.

His involvement started in 1961, when he began doing the Rotary auctions. In 1966, on Feb. 15, he officially joined the club and in 1969, became president. Now, he serves as the club’s historian.

When not involved with Rotary affairs, McGillivray spends his time flower gardening and setting up seasonal lights and decorations in his yard. “Right now, I set up yard lights and pumpkins and I get my Christmas lights ready. I’m working on my Christmas lights right now,” he said.

Just recently, McGillivray sold his old red truck. Talking about it, he mentioned, “I had it for 50 years, just to the day of when it was sold, pretty well. We used it for an auction office in the field. It was a Ford Econoline.”

McGillivray had another truck that ended up in Australia. “It was our courting truck and I had it fixed up for [mine and Joan’s 50th] anniversary,” he noted about this truck.

From all his experiences throughout his life, when asked what his favorite memory was, McGillivary answered with a recent one. “The 65th wedding anniversary we had a month ago,” was his answer, to which he added, “They couldn’t even buy cards for a 65th anniversary, they don’t make them. I guess people don’t stay together that long or live that long.”

Our monthly profile of a senior citizen is made possible with the support of the Home Assistance Neepawa and District (HAND) Seniors program.

Do you know someone with some interesting life stories? If so, we’d love to hear them! Contact Genie Barnaby at 204-476-2009 or at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . You can also contact us here at the Press, at 204-476-3401 or at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .