Community rallies around dairy family following barn fire

Fire destroyed an old barn and killed several head of cattle on the Titus family’s dairy farm in the Gorham’s Bluff area of the Kingston Peninsula in southern New Brunswick on Jan. 23. (Contributed photo)

by George Fullerton

On a clear and cold Sunday afternoon, Jan. 23, my bale spike repair efforts were interrupted by a phone call with a simple and alarming declaration: “Dad, Jeff’s barn is on fire!” It was our youngest daughter, Nora. She added: “He just called me from the mill. He is on his way home.”

Jeff Titus is the son of my first cousin, Reid Titus. Jeff had assumed management of his family’s dairy operation and in recent years spearheaded the construction of a 44-cow tie-stall barn, which was attached to the old gambrel-roofed dairy barn that the Titus family had used since the early 1950s. Jeff is very enthusiastic about dairying. With family support and hired employees, he had built up the herd and increased production, all while working full time at the Irving paper mill in Saint John.

In the summer of 2021, Jeff became something of a media star through a series of interviews with CBC’s Information Morning in Saint John radio show, sharing the joys of dairy farming.

Nora had been working for about a year as feed rep for Sollio Agriculture and Jeff became one of her customers. Jeff and Nora share a deep passion for dairying.

After several deep breaths to soothe the lump in my throat, I responded that a neighbour and I were on our way up to Gorham’s Bluff to offer what assistance we could. After driving only a kilometre up Route 845, which parallels the Saint John River, we could see a huge plume of smoke climbing into the clear sky.

Dairy farming father and son Reid and Jeff Titus in the days following the tragic fire. (George Fullerton photo)

PAST BARN FIRES

During the five-minute trip to the Titus farm, memories flashed through my mind of two separate fires in 1970 that destroyed my family’s barn and an uncle’s barn. Those fires were devastating for our families, but with community support, both barns were rebuilt, and we were back in business. I also recalled our cousin Gary Henderson perishing in a barn fire in the 1980s. 

On arrival, there was a long line of cars along the road and firetrucks dumping water on the milk room and the new tie-stall section of the barn. Flames were licking through the seams of the steel roofing on the 70-year-old section.

Over the course of the afternoon and into the night, nine volunteer fire departments continued to tanker water from Kingston Creek to control the blaze. In the morning, the fire-damaged tie-stall section of the barn remained standing.

A large contingent of relatives and neighbours were there to assist, trying to keep the rescued milk cows safe on the ice-covered yard. 

FAMILY HISTORY

Before the 1950s, the Titus farm was owned by our uncle Gordon Henderson. The original barn was destroyed by fire and rebuilt with community support around 1950. Shortly after Gordon decided that he would move his family to Ontario, his sister Gladys Titus and her husband Eldon bought the mixed farm operation, which included cream production.

Firefighters managed to save the shell of the newer tie-stall barn but a lot of debris and fallen insulation had to be cleaned up, a job that was eventually tackled by a small army of volunteers. (Contributed photo)

Gladys would often help Eldon at milking time and would babysit grandchildren in the barn by standing them in a large-mouthed milk can to keep them from wandering off into danger.

When Eldon’s health failed in 1980, their son Reid stepped in to farm, as well as driving a school bus. Reid remodelled the stable to a tail-to-tail layout, installed a barn cleaner and a milk room, and converted to fluid milk and a couple dozen cows.

Reid has always been a source of farm and machinery advice, quick to share vet meds on short notice, and a reliable supplier of colostrum to save a sick calf.

Growing up, the Titus children were our closest cousins, geographically, on my mother’s side. Reid and his sister Beth were only a couple of years older, and we had many visits for play, parties, family celebrations, and skating on the creek. Playing and helping out in the Titus barn was part of growing up. Many neighbours, relatives, and friends have their own memories of the Titus farm.

SMELLED SMOKE

Reid and farm employee Kirk Sawler were feeding and cleaning in the old section of the barn when Kirk thought he smelled smoke and asked Reid if someone was burning something in the neighbourhood. Minutes later, when Reid opened the door into the back of the stable, he discovered that the barn was on fire. After raising the alarm, Reid and Kirk began releasing milk cows from the tie-stall section.

Fuelled by a mow full of dry hay, the fire spread quickly and heavy smoke filled the tie-stall section. The milk cows, unaccustomed to being outside, did not cooperate. Once out, they tried to re-enter. Toward the end of the rescue efforts, a logging winch was employed to carefully pull the cows out of the smoke-filled building.

All but one of the cows in the tie-stall section escaped the fire. Some 40 head of young cattle and dry cows in the older section of the barn perished.

Nora arrived on the scene and said that she’d contacted drovers Coleman and Jordan Anderson, who were on their way to haul away the rescued cows. In the meantime, she started contacting dairy farmers she thought could take in some of the 38 cows that needed to be milked that evening. She found farms to take them all in.

HAULING COWS

Coleman and Jordan made several trips with the milk cows, delivering them to the farms of Everett and Joanne Frazee, Ian and Stephen Sharp, Ron and Coralee Wesselius, and Lee and Brenda Sharp. All milked that evening.

Along with the one cow that perished in the tie-stall section, two severely compromised cows spent the night in a garage on the Titus farm and were euthanized the following day. During the next week, three more cows died, likely from shock and smoke inhalation.

On the morning following the fire, Kevin Roberts used his excavator to dig through the debris of the old barn section to locate the water supply in order to reconnect it to Jeff’s house. Later on Monday and Tuesday, a small army of volunteers set to work cleaning debris and fallen insulation from the tie-stall section. Neighbour Tony Fullerton, along with an NB Power crew, established a temporary electrical service and even managed to get the barn cleaner functioning.

Early in the week, Kirk Sawler’s wife Ashley helped establish an online fundraiser page to support the Titus family. Jill Fullerton and her mother Beth established another fundraiser, selling tickets on a series of prizes donated by local businesses, artists, and crafters. And neighbours delivered food and envelopes to support the family.

CLEARING DEBRIS

Three days after the fire, volunteers built a temporary wall to protect the interior of the remaining tie-stall barn from the weather. (George Fullerton photo)

On Tuesday, Graham Walker teamed his truck with the Roberts excavator to clear debris from the old barn section. The cattle remains were disposed of separately. On Wednesday, a crew of volunteers built a temporary wall to protect the interior of the remaining tie-stall section from the weather.

While delivering another bag of baked goods on Feb. 5, a chat I had with Jeff’s wife Erin revealed that Jeff and his brother Ryan, along with another neighbour, were on their way to visit a modern barn in Millstream to get ideas for new barn construction.

Later, in a CBC radio interview, Jeff graciously thanked all the volunteers for their support. He underlined his family’s love of dairy farming and vowed that the Titus family would be back dairying.

A subsequent visit to Jeff’s house resulted in an invitation to view barn plans spread over the familiar kitchen table.

“We are looking at a lot of barns and getting a lot of ideas to build a barn,” he said. “There are a lot of big decisions to be made.”

CUTTING LOGS

After leaving Jeff, I found Reid in his repair shop and the conversation came around to an offer of logs by his summer neighbour Rusty MacCleery to support the rebuilding effort. However, Reid lamented that his equipment was too small, the snow was too deep, and he was getting too old to get the logs cut and skidded out.

A call to Jeff Doherty resulted in a tree skidder arriving the following week, with an enthusiastic (albeit somewhat decrepit) crew – which included me – to help get some timber for the rebuild.

The community support given to the Titus family has been enormous and, no doubt, will continue. Some heavy lifters were in a position to donate time and equipment, and their contributions have been just as important as folks dropping off baked goods and sharing kind words. The response to the disaster has been a demonstration of what community means. And we don’t expect the support to wane, even after the shiny tanker backs in again to pump on a load of Titus milk.