Earl Michael O'Brien

1929 to 2001

Earl was born August 4, 1929, to Alfred E. and Mabel (Gavin) O'Brien, the eldest of three children. His formal education took place in O'Brien Road school, Elmsdale, Tignish Convent, and St. Dunstan's where he majored in economics and graduated with a Arts degree in 1951. Even before entering St. Dunstan's, Earl knew he wanted to farm with his father. College, he saw as a major interruption and personal inconvenience, not what he chose for himself, but something he dutifully endured out of love for his parents. Although his heart was never in it, he excelled in studies while admitting little use for Latin which he memorized to pass exams. "I shouldn't have been there at all, should have stayed on the Dock Road taking care of the animals; it would have done me a lot more good," he contended.

Nevertheless, during all his life, which was a replica of his father's, his college degree facilitated the running of their small but thriving enterprise. On their two hundred acres of choice land, they specialized in raising livestock and a variety of forage crops. Before the days of large-scale