(below) The Laub /Dashwood Locker Building, is currently home to Dashwood’s post office (left). This structure housed Dashwood’s last Public Library, after the collection was moved here in 1981 from the Koehler building; Bernice Boyle was librarian and served until the Dashwood branch closed in November 1990.

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“Martin Laub who lived in Dashwood, planned on raising chickens when someone suggested he should build a frozen food locker. After thinking it over he liked the idea and contacted a Russell Brown of Chesley who was in the business of building such buildings.

In 1941 Brown and the late Harold (Hap) Weber, who worked for Brown, built the locker. it was constructed with tin on the outside and tongue and groove lumber on the inside. It was insulated with Pelco wool. This was red in colour from the redwood trees of California. This was fireproof. It came in bundles much like a bale of hay and had to be shredded which was quite a job. The late Laub and wife Rose, now a resident of the Blue Water Rest Home, Zurich, operated the locker. It was hard work. In no time the boxes were rented and the locker was enlarged. There was a cook stove to render the lard.

In 1944, they advertised it for sale. Arthur and Olive Allemand, who lived on a farm near Tillsonburg, read the ad and in 1945 they had a chance to sell their farm and decided to find out about the locker. Mrs. Allemand, widow of Arthur lives in Exeter.

She told me that when they got as far as highway 83 there was no pavement and the road was so rough and muddy she wanted to turn back but Art kept on driving and when they neared Dashwood the road improved. On arriving in Dashwood, they passed the locker and drove around the streets and promptly changed her mind. Mrs. Laub invited them for dinner, the deal was made and they spent many happy years in Dashwood. Again the locker was enlarged, using the same red insulation. The late Clifford (Cliff) Salmon did the work. Everyone got sick and the men had to wear masks which didn’t help much.

Ill health and ageing made the Allemands give up the locker. In May, 1956, they sold it to Wallace (Wally) Becker and his wife Helen who lived on the Walper farm near Grand Bend. They operated the locker until 1961. November 1, 1961, Hugh and Bernice Boyle of Willowdale purchased the locker and meat business from the Beckers. Cliff Salmon built 500 square feet for a grocery department which opened May 1, 1963. A larger addition was built by Cliff in 1971 making a total of 3000 square feet.

Hugh and Bernice and their four sons provided service to Dashwood for 18 years. People buying home freezers caused the 312 locker[s] [in the building] to decrease to 60. The lockers were phased out and eventually the store closed, August 1878.”

extracted from “Friedsburg-Dashwood 1860-1985” by Mary (Patterson) Rader, 1985; pgs. 9-10, ISBN 0-9692115-0-3