Springbank Snow Countess is located at corner of Dundas and Springbank
Woodstock's cow was designed by famous local artist Ross Butler
By Mark Schadenberg
I think having a cow statue in Woodstock – the Dairy Capital of Canada (Oxford County) – is a great idea. The Princess Snow Countess, which is noted on the front of the statue at Springbank and Dundas streets, is a record holder for producing butterfat and milk.
In the city of Markham, which is practically a district of Toronto, citizens are not happy with their cow tribute. The Markham dairy symbol is a chrome statue named Charity, Perpetuation of Perfection, and was apparently a prize-winning milker for the donor and the statue is dubbed “Brookview Tony Charity.” The edifice cost $1.2 million to create, according to a story in The Toronto Star.
The fast expansion of the GTA to its current 6 million population into a metropolis can be seen in many places around Toronto as former rural areas are now part of the megalopolis.
Helen Roman-Barber has donated the cow to the Markham community, so the actual cost to the tax payers is very low.
The Markham cow is like the Woodstock cow in that it was an award-winning Holstein producer on an area farm. In the 1980s it was billed as the top production cow in the world.
Found in a park on Charity Crescent – a street named after the Holstein – developer Roman-Barber (Romandale Farm was once located in this residential area) says many roads in the neighbourhood have names related to the dairy industry and other cows.
The fact the cow is made out of chrome would be the first negative and the next concern is likely that it’s on stilts and therefore about 20 feet above the ground also.
A CTV story summed up the Markham cow this way:
Resident Danny Da Silva says he’d prefer to see the statue put out to pasture altogether.
“Moooove the cow,” he said. “Let’s find a new home for it.”
WOODSTOCK
The Springbank Snow Countess statue is a local landmark as the statue is also on the original Dent family farm. The Woodstock cow and its record for butterfat production dates back to the 1920s and 1930s. The life-size statue first appeared in 1937 only about 1 year after the cow died.
The Woodstock cow – unlike the Markham statue – is a perfect model of the original Holstein as the Springbank Snow Countess was designed by renowned area artist Ross Butler (1907-1995).
In 2007 it was moved eastward about 30 metres to its current location. I remember when the monument was in its original locale and included a tourism booth.
If St Thomas loves its elephant statue, and the goose is honoured in Wawa, then Woodstock adores its cow.
The Snow Countess has certainly made the headlines a few times due to graffiti, but it will be the symbol of The Friendly City for many more generations.
In the book, the Village That Straddled A Swamp by Doug Symons, it is noted that the Springbank farm cow was integral to Oxford and Woodstock’s historical past, but so was its owner as Tom Dent was also the county’s MPP, sitting at Queen’s Park from 1943-54. The book also states that the Dent family owned the farm since 1879, but today it’s part of the area with a large Zehr’s store, Shoppers Drug Mart plaza and streets such as Vanier, Nesbitt, Nellis and Warwick.
One more sidebar is that Nesbitt Crescent is named after Wally Nesbitt who was an Oxford federal MP for eight terms beginning in 1953.
LINKS:
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/07/26/markham-residents-have-beef-with-huge-cow-sculpture.html
Woodstock
Mark Schadenberg, Sales Representative
Senior Real Estate Specialist (SRES designation)
Royal LePage Triland Realty
Independently Owned & Operated, Brokerage
757 Dundas St, Woodstock
Contact Mark today:
(519) 537-1553, cell or text
Email: mschadenberg@rogers.com
Twitter: markroyallepage
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Discussion . . . Direction . . . Determination . . . Destination
Mark Schadenberg was honoured in 2017 as a member
of the Woodstock Sports Wall Of Fame
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