Humble Beginnings to Towering Presence

In the beginning it was just the story of a father trying to make a living while raising his young family. Dawn to dusk solitary hard work operating a milk distributor business out of a simple barn brought success that saw his family business flourishing decades later.

The late Frank Finley Reid was the man responsible for the birth of Reid's Dairy in Belleville. His granddaughter, Belleville resident Patricia Burley, tells the tale of the early days when her grandfather was just starting out in running the dairy business, which was founded in 1908. It was then called Sidney Dairy Farms. It operated out of a barn, which she recalled, he kept "as clean as a pin."

The name of the dairy business was changed to Reid's dairy soon after. In 1910, Reid built the dairy on Parker Street in Belleville.

"Those days he was operating the dairy farm all by himself. His children were too young at the time."

Reid collected the milk from area farms each morning and delivered it door-to-door to local homes. In the pre-bottle days, he simply carried the milk in large cans that were transported by horse-drawn wagons. The milk was measured out to the buyer with a dipper that Reid carried in the wagon. "The woman of the house would bring out her milk pitcher and my grandfather would use the dipper to dip into the cans and pour the milk into the woman's pitcher."

Some years later, her grandfather built a small house on the corner of Dundas Street and Loyalist Road ( at the time it was called Trent Road, noted Burley) and operated a stand right beside the house.

At some point the dairy began delivering milk in bottles washed in a sterilizing solution called Wyandotte recalled Burley.

Among Reid's five children, Burley's mother, Grace, was the oldest and had the job of washing the bottles in the dairy until she went to nursing school in Toronto. Grace's younger siblings were Leonard, Fred, May and Florence.

"When the boys were old enough, my grandfather split the dairy in thirds. Leonard became the manager, my uncle Fred preferred to deliver the milk."

The latter, she recalled, was very much an outgoing person who loved meeting people.

"He had a great love for children. He was always happy and always whistling. He made many friends in the business. When we were little we used to ask him to 'play bear' with us whenever he came to our house and he would happily do that," said Burley, smiling at her childhood memory.

Leonard, the older of the two sons, took over as manager of the family business in 1919, a job he held until 1960.

The Reid's old family home still stands today on the south corner of Dundas St. West, said Burley. This building was the second one built after the original building burned down.

In 1967, Reid's Dairy was sold to Arthur Quickert, whose son Armin operated the business. The Quickerts kept the dairy's previous name but brought extensive changes to the operation by converting the door-to-door dairy business on Parker Street into the largest independent milk processing operation in Ontario. In 1985, Quickert moved the business to its current location on Bell Boulevard and opened the fairy-tale castle in 1991. Today Reid's Dairy is a dairy operation producing fluid milk, creams, ice creams and all natural juices and drinks. Its 21 dairy stores, carrying a full line of dairy products, are located in communities between Kingston and Markham.

Reid was a member of the Wesley United Church. He was married to Eliza Jane Foulkes who died in 1919. He later remarried a woman named Christina Arnold. Reid was 93 years old when he died on Nov. 25, 1967.