After 50 years, Don and Nancy Caverly retire and sell their Springwater Packers

by Rob Perry of The Aylmer Express

Don and Nancy

Caverly

worked hard to build their Springwater Packers business over the last 50 years before deciding to retire recently, but they’d rather give credit to everyone else, ranging from their staff and suppliers to their customers, and the Aylmer community as a whole.

The story of their success, Don said in an interview, was reflected in a “Small Town, Big Heart” sign promoting the town that many of his customers put their own messages on (see picture).

“That’s exactly the story of Aylmer that people will help, and don’t need to be asked a lot of times. It’s been a privilege.”

He told people he had won the lottery in life for so many reasons, he said, including a good wife, doing work he enjoyed, great customers, great staff, great suppliers and great service providers.

With all that, he concluded, “It’s easy.”

Local roots

They both were originally from the area. Don was born and raised in Malahide, and attended McGregor Public School, Davenport Public School and East Elgin Secondary School, then went straight into the meatpacking business. He had grown up in the industry through his parents’ business on Caverly Road.

Nancy was originally from Brownsville and grew up on a tobacco farm where her brother still resides.

She went to Brownsville Public School and then Glendale Secondary School in Tillsonburg, and London Teachers’ College, returning to Tillsonburg to teach.

Don said Nancy was teach- ing at the time they met, set up on a blind date by her sister Marg White.

He’d planned to take Nancy to Elmhurst Inn in Ingersoll, but the winter was terribly cold, and his car was out of antifreeze. His car got stuck in Nancy’s driveway, but he managed to dig it out, so she thought “he must be alright.”

They had trouble finding a garage in Tillsonburg that could help them out. Finally, despite being close to closing time, a mechanic agreed to have a look.

When they finally got to Elmhurst, they were late for their reservation, and had to plead to be let in, Don said. but they made it, and that must have been a good omen.

They later married on Aug. 28, 1982, the same day a killer frost hit the area.

“I always joke that Don got married when Hell froze over,” Nancy chuckled.

“I think we’re pretty content,” Don added. Building team & business from the ground up Nancy, after their marriage, quit teaching to help out at Springwater Packers, which Don had started 10 years earlier.

“I’m fond of saying there was nothing there but a bentover corn field” when he began, he said.

“He built that plant,” Nancy agreed.

Don believed that, when he first started, he might have had three employees (business records for the early years were destroyed in a house fire in 1992) and climbed to as high as 10.

Many meat cutters had trained with Springwater Packers over the years, he noted, including local resident Troy Spicer, who now runs a course for butchers through Fanshawe College.

When asked the key to the success of Springwater Packers, Don said putting in effort and a willingness to try learning and building skills was important.

If someone could become good and capable at their job, then everything seemed to work out.

“I think the thing is, if you’re not good at it, and you won’t try to be good at it, it seems to be hard, then it’s frustrating, then it’s tiring, and you go home and wonder why you’re doing it.”

A meat packer and abattoir business like theirs, he said, depended on the availability of livestock, and a sales barn. Without an auction nearby, the chance of an area having an abattoir went down sharply.

Aylmer at one point had four slaughter plants, he noted, but now only had one other beside Springwater, Johnson’s Meats. The next closest was in Ridgetown.

They’d never had any issue with animal activists, they said with some relief.

Slaughter plants were carefully inspected by the provincial and federal governments to ensure humane treatment of the animals waiting for and during the slaughter process, not that they needed that to do so.

“Nobody wants to abuse best to ensure the process was as comfortable as possible for the cattle and pigs they slaughtered. them,” he said. It wouldn’t make the resulting meat any better, and if an animal was having a hard time, “believe me, you’re having a hard time.”

When it came to beef, Don said, he’d always tried to have the highest grade possible, and to keep it cold and clean, give it time to age, and process it as best he could.

“I’m very proud of our pork program.” Springwater had five Ontario pork suppliers, all local, and pigs were easier to get than beef.

Having the animal travel the shortest distance possible to the slaughter plant was important for quality, he noted.

They always processed the best animals, nothing with injuries or ailments, and worked hard to turn out good products, whether bacon, sausages or smoked hams.

They’d always done their

“We worked hard to learn and build those products.”

Humbled

They’d been humbled by the response to news they were retiring and selling their plant, receiving gifts of flowers, including potted plants and bouquets, and gift certificates.

“I said to Donald, I guess we did a good job,” Nancy added.

Don said from time to time in the past, customers would come in at certain times with treats, a tray of coffee or a box of doughnuts, homemade buns, and even hand-crocheted potholders.

Nancy said they’d gotten a lot of other help along the way.

A Mrs. Hoyer, who with her husband had owned an abattoir on Springfield Road, after it was sold would come over to Springwater Packers and watch employees making sausages there, sometimes bringing with her a Black Forest cake.

When Mr. Hoyer gave up the business, Don said, he had people from the local Saxon German community visit Springwater Packers, asking if he could make certain traditional products.

“‘Yes,’ we said. It’s that simple.”

Nancy recalled brothers who came in with a gift, because Don had processed an order for them on an emergency basis,” back in the day when an emergency slaughter order could still be issued by a veterinarian for an injured animal.

“They appreciated they’d put you on the spot and didn’t like to see an animal suffer. They’re good people. All the farmers seemed so good.”

“You never had to worry about a bill (being paid),” Don agreed. “All the customers were that way. They customers made us what they did. It was the customers that made that place.”

Memorable meats, memorable meetings

Asked about their favourite products, Don said his had to be the variety of sausages they made, helped by the late Otto Schneider of Sparta.

Nancy said Otto would bring in recipes, and then translate them from the original German.

If they wanted to try something new, Don continued, Otto, whose father had been a master butcher in Germany, would come in three or four times to help perfect it.

Don said something similar applied to their main equipment supplier.

If he had a new machine, he wanted the Caverlys to try, Don would tell him they couldn’t afford it, and he’d insist on dropping it off on a trial run, promising to be back in a week to pick it up.

Of course, Don said, nine or 10 weeks would have passed before he did so, and the Caverlys would have learned to work with the machine and find they did want it after all.

He was a master salesman, Nancy said. The first time they met him, she thought he must own the equipment business, and his name was, appropriately enough, Bill Butcher. He’d always write in red ink, she added.

Don said he asked Bill why he did so, and he replied, “Do you know anybody who likes to lose money? Nobody does, because if you do, you have to write it in red.”

By using that colour himself, he could always distinguish his own notes.

“I don’t think I ever signed anything with him,” Don added. Everything was done on a handshake.

Nancy remembered that Don told her, as soon as they married, “I could have anything I wanted as long as I paid for it.”

Some of the machinery at the plant had been her “birthday presents,” she laughed.

Turning to her favourite product, she said when she first met Don, he would bring over some meat from time to time, but she wouldn’t eat sausages, even though she was Hungarian, because they upset her stomach.

“Don said, ‘I don’t put bad stuff in my sausage,’ and I never had a problem after that,” and her favourite product had been their German smoked linked sausages.

When he went to make a product, Don said, he didn’t just do so with meat they had left over. They made something for a customer to take home.

“You just had to get it ready, so it was ready for them when they wanted it.”

When asked to make something new, he added, he would consider some things, but also knew what was beyond him, and he would suggest someone else who could do the job.

“Better to tell them the truth as to blunder in, pretending you can do it, and it turns out unsatisfactory, and then what happens?”

They could do special sausage blends when customers brought in their favourite recipes, Nancy said.

Handing off the hard work, finding peace

Don said they started thinking about selling the business years ago, when he was badly ill with the flu.

“I was lucky,” and recovered, but that was touch-and-go for a time while he was still sick.

Nancy said she’d work at the plant during the day and then go up to the hospital at night to sit with Don.

Arranging actual sale took time. They listed the business for a brief time, but the listing ran out without an offer.

“It is hard work,” Nancy said. “Even if he (Don) says it’s not.”

Attitude made all the differ- ence, Don said. He had never fired an employee in his life, and all he asked was workers make an effort to be good at their jobs.

Now that they had sold the business to a local buyer, Nancy said, she’d miss the customers and staff she used to see daily.

“We all worked very hard together,” and she knew her customers by name, and would talk about their families when they stopped in.

A lot had changed over the years, Don added. The number of slaughter plants in Ontario had dropped precipitously during that time, and when he had started, every 50 acres locally had been another family farm.

“That’s gone,” though he wasn’t saying that was good or bad, he observed.

The sale of the plant formally closed in May.

For now, Nancy said, their retirement plans revolved around staying healthy, and enjoying their motorboat that’s docked in Port Stanley through each summer.

“And we love our town,” she added.

“This town has been good to us, it’s our home, we’re safe here from bad climate, natural disasters, we’ve been at peace,” Don said. “It’s peace that lets people prosper.”