Aaross History
In the early seventies Frank and Francine Gielis moved from the Netherlands to Canada. Francine came as a nurse to Toronto and Frank came as an agricultural exchange student to a dairy farm in Oxford County.
They met at a Dutch Canadian dance, fell in love and married in 1977. They bought a dairy farm, bred Holstein cows and registered their purebred Holsteins with the pre-fix Aaross, a combination of the names of their hometown Aarlanderveen and Oss. They bred many very good cows including an excellent cow and national fat champion Aaross Rockman Elsie.
In 1998 they decided to start a horse breeding farm, and imported top quality Dutch Warmblood horses from the Netherlands, with the emphasis on dressage bloodlines.
We all have memories to last us a lifetime. We will forever remember those special events, the first Open House we had, the Vinyl Cafe CBC concert, the student's performance at the Woodstock Centennial Celebrations with the RCMP, The Award of Excellence, Doors Open Ontario, the many clinics, shows and performances we organized. We'll miss the people who came to visit us, visitors from all over the world, the Agritours, the local service clubs, the speaking engagements and the frequent drop-ins.
We were proud to be able to send some
of our students to Denmark to the World Championship where they
represented Canada and placed very well, is a credit to our teaching program and to the young people in this area.
We bred some fantastic horses and sold them all over North America. The stallions, Rasputin, Socrates and Trudeau were the joy of our farm and we are thrilled to see several of their offspring doing very well in the competition ring.
In 2007 the farm was sold and my parents retired. And in 2010 when I started my cake baking business, my parents gave me the name Aaross to use if I wanted it. I decided to use the name Aaross Sweet Creations to honor my Dutch Heritage and my parents professional life.
