(13 May 1900-10 Aug. 1972), creamery proprietor, businessman. (Robert J. Graham, R. J. Graham, Bob Graham) Born at Vankleek Hill, Ont. Parents: Robert M. Graham and his wife Carrie Steele. Robert J. Graham attended primary school at Cassburn, Ont. The work of establishing the Graham Creamery at Alexandria began late in 1922. At the beginning, Robert J. was associated in this project with his brother Wilmer, with whom he had been operating a creamery business in the Cassburn area, but later Wilmer left the Alexandria creamery business which was to be thereafter, and over many years, the creamery instead of Robert J. By Nov. the concrete foundations were being laid for the building on Main Street, just to the south of the Alexandria standpipe. (Glengarry News 13 Oct. and 3 Nov. 1922) The creamery opened in March 1923 for business. (GN 23 March 1923) Later, the creamery was relocated to Mill Square and, its final location, Kenyon Street on the western edge of Alexandria.

     The creamery was for many years a small but important GC business. Founded about the time the Munro and McIntosh carriage business was disappearing, it helped to sustain the hard-struck Alexandria during the economically difficult years of the 1930s and 1940s. Some farmers shipped their milk to the Graham Creamery the year around, but other farmers shipped their milk to the creamery only during the winter, when the cheese factories were normally closed. Under this highly-flexible system a farm family might ship cream to the creamery for a few weeks late in the fall, and again for a period in the spring. The system allowed farmers time out in the winter for the period when the cows were “dry” and calving, and also for the period in which many farm families needed the farm cream to make the year’s supply of butter for their household. To this extent, while the Graham Creamery was a rival of the cheese factories it also supplemented them.

     Near the end of the 1930s the Graham Creamery Co. Ltd took over the old Alexandria grist mill in Mill Square. There Graham operated along with the creamery a feed mill and a farm machinery and parts dealership. And in the same building he established the Hub Restaurant, which was to be for many years under several owners one of GC’s best-liked gathering places. The Hub was owned 1946-1969 by Lloyd McHugh, and still later was reconstructed and renamed the Priest’s Mill Restaurant. Robert J. Graham was mayor of Alexandria in 1950 and 1951. He became mayor by defeating Romeo Rouleau, and he was replaced by George Simon, who was chosen by acclamation. Robert J. Graham was one of the Alexandria businessmen who were investors in the skating rink and sports facility called Glengarry Gardens. (Glengarry News 10 Oct. 1952) He also owned a small apartment building in Alexandria, known as the Graham Apartments, constructed from materials from from the WWII airfield at St. Eugene. Deeply interested in agriculture, and for some years the owner of a purebred Holstein herd, he had a farm just west of Alexandria, formerly that of J. Lockie Wilson.

     Graham was married on 25 Aug. 1926 to Dorothy Elizabeth Hope (6 Aug. 1905-8 March 1974), daughter of Dr James T. Hope. (four children) He died sudenly near Alexandria. He is buried in the Protestant cemetery, Alexandria. He was a Methodist before Church Union, and afterwards a member of the United Church, in which he was an elder. He was also a Mason. Robert J. Graham’s brother Wilmer A. Graham (20 May 1902-27 Aug. 1959), who was associated with him in the early stages of the Graham Creamery in Alexandria, was active also in the dairy business in Ottawa and then from 1931 in Montreal where he founded the Graham Creamery Ltd.

     At the time of Robert J. Graham’s death, the Alexandria creamery was being operated by his son-in- law Douglas Baxter (d. 15 Dec. 2003, aged 78), a future owner of the creamery, married to Carol Graham.

Glengarry News 17 Aug. 1972 * private information * biog. sketch in Des’Avirons 18 août 1972 * Campbell (1990), 538-546 * obituary of wife, GN 14 March 1974 * obituary of dau. Vivien Elizabeth (Mrs Ballantyne), GN 27 Dec. 2000 * obituary of Wilmer A. Graham, GN 10 Sept. 1959 * obituary of Douglas Baxter, Glengarry News 16 Dec. 2003 (portrait) * many GN reports on creamery over the years, e. g. , GN 14 Dec. 1923, 20 Jan. 1928, 22 Jan. 1932, 17 Oct. 1941, on progress and current state of the creamery * engagement, marriage, 30 July & 27 Aug. 1926 * building, occupancy, of Graham Apartments, GN 25 July 1947, 30 Jan. & 13 Feb. 1948 * elected mayor, Standard Freeholder 6 Dec. 1949 * to retire as mayor, GN 30 Nov. 1951 * original creamery building being converted to apts., GN 26 Sept. 1952 (not the same as the “Graham Apartments”) * biog. sketch (with portrait) of his daughter Nancy Graham MacKenzie on her induction into Glengarry Sports Hall of Fame, Vankleek Hill Review 4 Aug. 2004, GN 18 Aug. 2004