Aunt Sally's Farm is returning to the Assiniboine Park Zoo!
For those of you too young to remember the attraction, the above postcards will give you an idea of what it was all about. If you went to elementary school in Winnipeg between 1959 and 1986 it surely would have been on your itinerary.
The children's farm was part of multi-year, $2.5 million modernization
of the zoo that began in the late 1950s. Preliminary plans for the farm were released
by Tom Hodgson, the city's parks manager, in September 1957.
Built on the site of the zoo's original aviaries, the exhibit would include a large picnic hut, a barn with animal enclosures, a wishing well, a miller's wheel and a central lawn area. A miniature train on a half-kilometre-long track wold encircle its perimeter. It would feature
a menagerie small animals borrowed from area farms, including geese, goats, donkeys, pigs and sheep, that
children could visit up-close and even interact with.
Hodgson requested a $12,000 contribution from the city for phase one of the farm - an amount that the newly established Manitoba Zoological Society would match and then some. The MZS would pay the remaining $50,000 or so to finish the exhibit over time.
Winnipeg Tribune Personalities Collection, U of M Archives (link)
From the start, the plan was to name the farm in honour of Sally Warnock, the city's best-known animals rights campaigner.
Originally from Coleraine, County Derry, N. Ireland, Warnock came to Winnipeg as a young woman in 1911 to visit a brother and ended up staying. She worked as secretary to attorney general Colin Campbell, then during the war she was a secretary with the Canadian Field Comforts Commission, followed by more than a year in the employ of the T. Eaton Company.
Warnock was a founding member of Winnipeg branch of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, now the Winnipeg Humane Society, in 1919. In August 1920, she asked to work for the WSPCA as its secretary-manager. Her first day on the job was August 12, 1920 and she remained in that role for the next 38 years.
The early years of the WSPCA were a tough slog as most people simply didn't understand Warnock's message. To businessmen, her campaigns for better treatment of working horses on the streets or conditions for cattle and sheep at city markets was simply her interfering with their businesses. The plight of stray cats and dogs were seen as inconsequential by the public at large.
A 1928 Winnipeg Tribune editorial that asked people to donate to the WSPCA noted that for most people in the city, "Preoccupation with the woes of animals, they believe, uses up sympathy which should be devoted to the woes of humanity."
This left it up to Warnock and the small band of WSPCA members, mostly women, to raise the funds they needed through door-to-door collections, small concerts and teas. (Harriet Walker, co-owner of the Walker Theatre, was a supporter.)
After years of simultaneously battling and wooing city hall and getting the media on her side, Warnock's WSPCA was finally made part of a tag day in 1926 - one where the proceeds got split over numerous organizations. In 1927, the organization was finally able to have a tag day of its own.
The income from an annual tag day put the organization on more solid financial footing and gave its work more credibility in the community.
A 1928 Winnipeg Tribune editorial that asked people to donate to the WSPCA noted that for most people in the city, "Preoccupation with the woes of animals, they believe, uses up sympathy which should be devoted to the woes of humanity."
Sally Warnock, ca. 1935 (Winnipeg Tribune)
The city provided no financial assistance towards the WSPCA's $5,000 yearly operating budget. To make matters worse, its finance committee deemed the cause not to be a charity, which meant that it could not have a 'tag day' to raise funds on city streets. (A "tag day" allowed supporters to be on city streets and the entrances
of shops with donation boxes. In return for their change, people would get a paper tag pinned to their coat, nowadays a sticker, to show their support.)This left it up to Warnock and the small band of WSPCA members, mostly women, to raise the funds they needed through door-to-door collections, small concerts and teas. (Harriet Walker, co-owner of the Walker Theatre, was a supporter.)
After years of simultaneously battling and wooing city hall and getting the media on her side, Warnock's WSPCA was finally made part of a tag day in 1926 - one where the proceeds got split over numerous organizations. In 1927, the organization was finally able to have a tag day of its own.
The income from an annual tag day put the organization on more solid financial footing and gave its work more credibility in the community.
January 27, 1932, Winnipeg Tribune
In 1931, the WSPCA investigated 10,632 cases of animal cruelty or abandonment. Most had to do with the treatment of sheep, pigs and cattle at local markets, 2,865 cases involved working horses, there were also nearly 2,500 stray cats and 600 stray dogs that were dealt with. Warnock even took on the Assiniboine Park Zoo to task that year for its display of beavers in tiny cages, (Grey Owl even got in on that campaign).
Most complaints came from the public, but Warnock was known for doing her own inspection of horses stopped in the street or walking into markets to check out the conditions. Though animal welfare laws were not strong in those days, she would badger a nearby constable for help or go to city council to insist that action be taken.
Over time, various stories came to light over Warnock' encounters. The time she grabbed a "300 pound man" by the ear at a city market and dragged him to a constable to complain about action he had taken against one of his animals. A train crew that held up their train for hours when a skunk was discovered in the caboose so that it could be humanely rescued, rather than risk the wrath of Warnock after a quick kill. She successfully appealed to the premier during the 1950 flood to have hay delivered by helicopter to stranded horses and cattle.
Without a building of its own, animal welfare calls and visits went directly to Warnock's home at 120 Charlotte Street, (now Hargrave Street), and she was on call 24/7. Her property became a menagerie of discarded household pets that she rescued or that were dumped on her doorstep.
In 1936, a new premises for what had become known as the Winnipeg Humane Society was built at 1057 Logan Avenue. (If the address is familiar, it is the present site of the city's Animal Services Department.) Sally Warnock came to be the live-in manager with her dozens of animals in tow.
Attitudes towards animal welfare began to change in the 1940s and 1950s and Warnock's campaign had become a cause celebre amongst media types, politicians and some business leaders who now openly supported her and the organization.
The Manitoba Zoological Society, established in 1956, made Warnock its first honourary life member, "In recognition and appreciation of a dedicated and life-long devotion to the succour and protection of animals and birds." As she was known for inviting children into her house and yard to show them her animals and preach respect for then, the group decided that their children's farm at the zoo would be named "Aunt Sally's Farm".
August 18, 1958, Winnipeg Tribune
Sadly, Warnock would not get to see Aunt Sally's Farm. She died in her sleep on August 16, 1958, not long before construction was to get underway. Always secretive about her age, it was believed she was in her late seventies to late eighties when she died.
Warnock's coffin lay in state at city hall before being delivered under the escort of an RCMP and city police officer in dress uniform to St. Stephens - Broadway United Church. There, hundreds of friends, officials, and even a few animals, attended her farewell.
The Winnipeg Tribune wrote at the time of her death, "Sally Warnock was a Winnipeg institution, one of the most colourful, interesting personalities in these parts. Any little trouble or major tragedy of the animal world was her special concern."
September 5, 1957, Winnipeg Free Press
Construction got under way on Aunt Sally's Farm in late 1958 with the expectation that it would open in mid-summer 1959. That June, the children of Inkster School were invited for a tour so that staff could test out the facilities and evaluate the children's reaction.
The farm officially opened on August 8th, 1959. Mayor Stephen Juba and an unnamed goat worked together to respectively cut and eat the ribbon in front of 500 onlookers.
When the farm closed on Labour Day 1959, Zoological Society staff took time to examine the attendance figures and to their surprise found that many more adults paid to visit Aunt sally's Farm than children. (These were the days when many families had three or four kids, so the ratio was expected to be overwhelmingly children's admissions.) There were 18,806 children's visits at ten cents each and 27,376 adults at 25 cents each. Another 11,573 children came on school trips.
It was estimated that Aunt Sally's Farm would raise $2,700 at the gate in its first, abbreviated summer. It ended up raising $9,000.
Aunt Sally's Farm's last summer appears to have been 1986. The following year, designs for a new children's attraction, The Kinsmen Discovery Centre, were approved. (It may have received a reprieve for another year, though, as a Free Press article in 1988 mentions the farm still being there whilst construction of the Discovery Centre was taking place - though it may have been just the abandoned site.)
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