For 100 years, a family-owned establishment in Ladysmith has stood as the main provider of food, gas and hardware for local residents and tourists, playing a significant role in the town’s growth and economic stability ever since its conception.
On June 29, around 400 Pontiac residents and regional cottagers gathered outside the Bretzlaff Store in Ladysmith for some good old barbecuing in celebration of a great milestone after the business finally hit the century mark.
According to the store’s owner Gerda Bretzlaff, the modestly populated town wouldn’t have the same level of vibrancy, especially in the summer months, if not for the presence of her business.
“The community, we wouldn’t have the cottagers and people in the area if there was not a business here,” she said. “It’s not only a grocery. It’s a hardware and lumber – jack of all trades.”
While the Bretzlaff Store has played a major role in making people’s cottage-country lifestyles more convenient for many years, the sheer size of the crowd that showed up for the celebrations was a very heart-warming sight, Gerda said.
“We didn’t expect that many people,” she said. “It was really, really overwhelming. Definitely in a good way.”
With the store spanning multiple generations, even predating her arrival in Canada, Gerda is extremely proud to be part of one of the original family-owned enterprises in the region.
“I’m honoured and at the same time, how many businesses [are] there in the Pontiac that are run by the same family for 100 years and still going. The bread-man told me we’re the only business in the Pontiac that’s still in the same family.”
Living in post-WWII Germany, Gerda didn’t face the most favourable circumstances growing up. After losing nearly everything in the aftermath of the destruction, she had no choice but to find another place to settle.
“There was nothing really to keep us and to want to stay there,” she said.
Shortly after immigrating to Canada from Germany in the spring 1960 to meet up with one of her siblings, Gerda met a man by the name of Wally Bretzlaff in Ladysmith where the two eventually settled and started a family.
Built in 1915, the Bretzlaff Store was initially owned and operated by second-generation German immigrants Alfred Bretzlaff and his wife Rosanna.
The son of Ferdinand Bretzlaff, part of the original four families that settled in Ladysmith from Prussia in 1872, Alfred and his wife ran the business for over 15 years before eventually selling it off to one of his siblings.
In 1933, as Alfred battled severe sickness for over three years, his brother Werner and his wife Maria officially bought the building and operated the enterprise for the next 27 years.
Their important impact on the business was recognized in 2013 with a mural painted by Aylmer-based artist David Yeatman, depicting both of them standing next to each other in front of the old building, currently situated outside at the front of the establishment.
In 1960, Werner’s son Wally and his wife Gerda officially bought the store.
The only grocery store in town, the business also served as a home for Gerda’s parents after they immigrated to the Pontiac from Germany in 1960.
The journey to the century mark-milestone has certainly provided its share of hardships.
In 1974, a disastrous fire suddenly broke out inside the building in the middle of the night, burning the entire building and everything in it to the ground, leaving it in an unsalvageable state of ash and rubble.
“Everything burned,” Gerda said. “The whole store burned. We lost a lot but we didn’t lose anything – we didn’t lose a life.”
Deeply disheartened by the tragedy, she remained very determined to save the family’s home and business and did everything she could to defy all doubters in order to bring it back up – even her husband.
Having been such a significant part of the family’s history, she wasn’t about to simply watch it go to waste.
While Wally wasn’t too content on rebuilding as he was already working full-time as an electrician, Gerda refused to let the business die without one last ditch effort – one that has certainly paid off.
“He went to work one day, when he came back, the footing was dug. He said, ‘Oh I thought we weren’t going to rebuild.’ I said, ‘No, nobody’s going to chase me.’”
“It was hard at first,” she added. “But I was pretty determined and pig-headed and it has worked out for me and for my family.”
According to Gerda’s granddaughter Megane Bretzlaff, operating the business in a small town like Ladysmith with tight-knit population has certainly been positive for the store’s longevity.
Without the heavy competition and lack of human connection with clients that often comes with running a busy business in an urban area, she believes her family has really gotten to know its customers and the community at large on a personal level.
“The Pontiac is such a close community,” she said. “Everybody kind of knows each other or knows somewhat about each other.”
Held in high standard among locals, the store’s elongated prosperity has caught the eye of nearby business people who have reached out to the family seeking to know what’s in the sauce that makes the Bretzlaff store so successful, Megane said.
“The previous people that bought the [Coin] Picanoc store in Otter Lake,” she said. “He came and asked us, ‘What do you do different? How do you figure this out?’ It was his first time owning a business and he didn’t know how to do it. We’re willing to help.”
Boasting a diverse inventory with groceries, fuel, hardware and lumber among an endless list of other things, the business-model hasn’t changed much, if ever, since Wally and Gerda took over in 1960.
“We still do a lot of things like back when my grandma used to do it,” she said. “We have an old mentality. I think that could benefit us. We’re trying to introduce more technology to the store.”
“We still do a lot of stuff by hand,” she added. “Like when people give us cash, we still count it out in our heads. It hasn’t really changed much.”
Besides a couple of new additions to the store in the last several years, including the new cash registers installed around three years ago, new gas pumps last year and an SAQ license granted five years back, the motto seems to be in line with not messing with a good recipe, Megane said.
“Don’t’ fix something that’s not broken,” she said.
In her 20-plus years helping out at the store, the social aspect of the job has always made the work worthwhile at the end of the day.
Whether it’s catching up with old friends at the cash register or getting to know a group of tourists whilst pumping their gas, the people tend to make her endeavour even more meaningful.
Having been around the store since her infancy, Megane has countless memories working for the family business.
From spending her summers and weekends at the family’s cottage as a youngster, to working in the store from open to close almost every day of the week, her experiences in the family business have played a significant role in her upbringing, she said.
“We always worked in the store,” she said. “We pumped gas. We worked in the lumber yard. We learned how to drive a forklift young, the tractor.”
While her friends were out enjoying themselves at the lake or at the movies, Megane was hard at work greeting customers at the cash register, fueling their vehicles or stocking two by fours in the lumber yard.
“When you’re born into it, I think it’s just your mentality of how you think of stuff,” she said.
More meaningful than a place to work or a source of income, it’s her life endeavour and one of the main things that keeps her globe turning.
Now with kids of her own and still working in the store seven days per week, she doesn’t see herself venturing off into something else at any time soon.
“I don’t know otherwise,” she said. “If this store were to sell or were to shut down, my heart would be broken.”
For Gerda, the decision to move away from her home country at a young age, to eventually settle in rural Quebec and dedicate her life to operating a convenience store, absolutely worked to fruition.
“I never regretted making the decision to come to Canada, gettin g married and staying in Ladysmith and having my family here,” she said. “I never regretted. Yes, there always are days that you say ‘Oh why me?’ But that’s just a saying and then you forget about it.”
