It's all in the Family!
Excerpt from Albion Ragg - February 2003
Our regular customers will realize that many of the employees and managers at Bruce's Country Market are related. It was Bruce and Elnora McEachern who started the original Bruce's Market in 1948, and two of their three children and spouses run the new Bruce's Country Market. The history of how our family came to the Fraser Valley and started in the fishing business is an interesting story. Here is a short version as told by Glenn McEachern, Bruce's younger brother:
Dan and Minnie McEachern lived in Saskatchewan and had 11 children, 9 boys and 2 girls. Dan and the oldest son Bud came out to Langley and started a farm and farmhouse in the area now known as Walnut Grove in 1935. Bud stayed on the farm* and Dan returned to Saskatchewan to bring the rest of the family out. There was no good road through Canada at this time, so Dan, Minnie, and the rest of the children came through the United States,everyone loaded in one truck and one car! Dan started fishing in 1936, as well as farming in a small way, because land had to be cleared, and the only help besides manpower was a team of horses. Dan and Minnie remained on the Langley farm property until 1974, at which time they moved to Albion. Dan fished the Fraser River in the Barnston Island Slough, with the odd trip to the Gulf of Georgia. Each of the nine sons were involved in the fishing industry at one time during their working years, with WWII causing interruptions for some. They were also involved in logging, shipyard work, boat construction (wood, steel, aluminum and fiberglass) and house construction during the off-season from fishing. Bruce McEachern became a full-time store keeper in 1948. Dan McEachern fished each year until his retirement in 1960, having stopped farming 5 years earlier. Each of the boys acquired knowledge of fishing and net mending through "apprenticeship" with their dad. The "McEachern Boys" worked in many areas of the fishing industry, from the Fraser River to the Bering Sea, in gillnet, long-line, troll and seine fisheries, as well as the transport of fish. They fished salmon, herring, dogfish and halibut. Some of Dan McEachern's grandchildren and great-grandchildren are carrying on in the fishing industry today.
*Bud and his family stayed on the family farm near Maxim, Saskatchewan before moving back to Walnut Grove in the 1950's. A more detailed family history may be available at a later date.
