Retrospect Special: Memorial service planned for former Lisbon farmer
Posted: Living Sussex Sun, June 14, 2011 11:08 a.m.
A memorial will be held on July 9 for Lisbon farmer George McKerrow who died on Jan. 21 at age 85. His ashes will be spread along with a service at 10 a.m. at Lisbon Presbyterian Church on Hillside Road.
McKerrow was a prominent member of a leading Lisbon farming family in area from 1850 to 1978. Today, their land, near square mile in size, is being subdivided into the Scottish Highlands south of Lisbon Road. The land also includes a proposed county park off Lyndale Road.
The McKerrow farm was state-, nation- and world-renowned for its breeding stock of sheep and Guernsey cattle. Young George picked up the family mantle and was designated to carry the farm into the 21st century.
He attended Richmond School and then graduated from Pewaukee High School. He served in World War II as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corp. In 1946, he graduated from University of Wisconsin magna cum laude in dairy science.
Meanwhile, his father Gavin McKerrow had started the Golden Guernsey Cooperative during the depths of the Depression in 1929 and George became involved in the Waukesha-based dairy cooperative. (An aside to this is his father was slated in 1948 to become the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture if Tome Dewey was elected president over Harry Truman.)
In the late-1950s, George decided to strike out on his own going to Cleveland, Ohio, to be a top executive of DairyPak Inc. In 1981, he co-founded LongHorn Steaks with his son, George Jr. By 1984 he was in Atlanta, Ga., and had put in 20 years with LongHorn Steaks. This grew from one restaurant to 195 under the name of Capitol Grill and Bugaboo Grill.
In September of 2000, the now 75-year-old George McKerrow donated $1,000,000 to the University of Wisconsin to create the George W. McKerrow Dean’s Program of Excellence at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
McKerrow died in Atlanta. He was the son of Gavin McKerrow and Carolyn (Summers). His mother was brought up on a farm on Plainview and Woodside Road. He had a brother, William who is deceased and three sisters, Isabel, Helen and Florence along with 12 grandchildren.
After the Lisbon Presbyterian service on July 9, George’s ashes will be conveyed to the future McKerrow section of a Waukesha County park land where a special commemorative stone is in place to mark where the original 1850 McKerrow pioneer home was situated. The stone’s inscription reads, “(Pioneer) Gavin McKerrow & Elizabeth Howit settled here in 1850. The land was farmed by 5 generations of McKerrows – Year 2000.” All are invited to the July 9 memorial service.