By Simon Royer, REALTOR® at RE/MAX Icon Realty

Ma famille est venue de St Fabien de Panet avec peu de choses, mais avec la volonté de travailler et l'espoir qu'une nouvelle ville pourrait devenir chez nous. Cambridge est devenu chez nous. C'est mon histoire.

This is not a market update. It is not a neighbourhood guide or a list of reasons to move to Cambridge. You can find those on other pages of my website.

This is a story about a family that came to Cambridge from somewhere else and never left. Three generations of work, community, language, and love for a city that gave us everything we needed to build a life.

This is my Cambridge.

Where it started

My family came from St Fabien de Panet, a small municipality in Quebec, part of a generation of French Canadian families who left rural Quebec looking for work and a future in Southern Ontario. They were not the only ones. Through the mid-twentieth century, thousands of French Canadian families made that journey, leaving behind the Quebec they knew for cities like Cambridge that were growing, industrializing, and hungry for workers who were not afraid of hard work.

Cambridge was that city for my family. The Grand River, the limestone buildings, the mills and factories that lined the waterfront. A city built on industry and shaped by the hands of the people who worked in it. My family was among them.

Three generations at Canadian General Tower

My grandfather walked through the doors of Canadian General Tower and built a life. My father followed. I followed after that.

Three generations of one family working at one of Cambridge's most significant industrial employers. Canadian General Tower, founded by the Chaplin family whose name still appears on one of Cambridge's most beloved community institutions, the Chaplin Family YMCA, and whose historic family estate would later star in a Hollywood film alongside Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone, which you can read about in my Hollywood Cambridge Guide, was part of the industrial fabric that made Cambridge what it was.

Cambridge was once one of the great textile and manufacturing capitals of Southern Ontario. Tiger Brand, Montreal Woolens, Waterloo Textile, Cambridge Towel, Barrday Inc. Everyone who grew up here knows Tiger Brand. The sweaters. The workwear. The brand that was as woven into Cambridge childhood as the smell of the Grand River in spring.

My first job was at Barrday Inc, another piece of that same industrial heritage. I was third generation in a city that rewarded loyalty and work. Cambridge gave my family a living. We gave Cambridge our years.

The Centre Communautaire and the French that stayed

Le Centre Communautaire francophone de Cambridge, c'était plus qu'un bâtiment. C'était l'endroit où on pouvait être nous-mêmes. Où le français n'était pas quelque chose à cacher ou à excuser, mais quelque chose à célébrer. En tant qu'enfant de famille québécoise en Ontario anglophone, ça voulait dire quelque chose. On appartenait ici, dans les deux langues, complètement.

Language is a complicated thing when you are the child of immigrants. You carry two worlds inside you and sometimes they pull in different directions. English at school, at work, in the world. French at home, at the dinner table, in the quiet moments when the city fell away and it was just family.

My connection to the French Canadian community in Cambridge goes back to the very beginning. I was baptized at Église Saint-Martyrs-Canadiens, the French Catholic church that was the spiritual home of the francophone community in Cambridge. I attended St. Noel Chabanel and Père René de Galinée, two of Cambridge's French language schools that served the francophone community for generations. Those schools were where the language lived during the day. The Centre Communautaire francophone de Cambridge was where it lived in the evenings and on weekends.

Together they gave me something rare in an English province. A complete French Canadian childhood in a city that was not Quebec but understood what Quebec meant to the families who had left it. We belonged here. In both languages. Fully and completely.

A Cambridge childhood

Cambridge did not just give my family work and community. It gave me a childhood worth remembering.

I started my martial arts training at Cambridge Martial Arts, a passion that has stayed with me ever since and eventually led to earning my black belt. On winter weekends there was house league hockey at Karl Homuth Arena in Preston, braving the 5am practice ice and the cold the way every Canadian kid does, the quintessential experience that Cambridge delivered in full. And after the games, after practice, after whatever the day had brought, there was always Andy's Pizza for a late night slice. If you grew up in Cambridge you know Andy's. You know exactly what I am talking about.

Family meals often meant George's Restaurant, another Cambridge institution that has stood the test of time. Both Andy's and George's are still among my favourites today. Some things you do not outgrow. You just appreciate them more as you get older.

Cambridge was not just where I lived. It was where I became who I am.

Aunt Denise and the corner that changed everything

Long before I ever thought about getting my real estate licence, I watched my aunt do it first.

Denise Dion was a broker with Century 21 who owned and operated her brokerage alongside a business partner, serving the Cambridge community and the French Canadian community for years. Their office was in the old Bank of Montreal building on the corner of Main Street and Water Street in the heart of downtown Galt. One of Cambridge's most beautiful heritage buildings. One of the most recognizable corners in the city.

That corner office was more than a business address. It was a statement. A French Canadian woman and her partner building something visible and real in the heart of Cambridge, serving their community in both languages, in a city that had given their family a chance. If you want to explore the history, architecture, and lifestyle of the historic area where my family's real estate roots began, check out my 2026 West Galt Neighbourhood Guide.

I watched Aunt Denise and I understood something that no classroom ever taught me. You could build something here. You could plant yourself in this city and grow.

It is because of Denise that I became a REALTOR® today.

A new city, a new chapter

A few years ago my husband Tyler and I made the move from Cambridge to Brantford. Just down the road. A fresh start in a new city, with our dogs Merlyn and Violet and our cat Nico, ready to write a new chapter of a story that started generations ago in a small Quebec municipality most people have never heard of.

We did not leave Cambridge behind. You do not leave a city like that behind. Cambridge is in my accent when I slip into French without thinking. It is in the way I read a neighbourhood, the way I understand what makes a street feel like home versus just a place to live. It is in the work ethic my grandfather brought from Quebec and passed down through two more generations without ever having to say a word about it.

Brantford is home now. But Cambridge made me.

Why I am telling you this

People always like to sample the merchandise before they commit. And in real estate, the merchandise is the person you are trusting with one of the biggest decisions of your life.

So here I am. No filter, no polished sales pitch. Just the honest story of where I come from and what shaped me. A French Canadian family from rural Quebec. Three generations on the factory floor. A black belt earned at a Cambridge dojo. Late night slices at Andy's. A corner office on Main and Water that taught me what was possible.

If you like what you see here, I think we will get along just fine. And if Cambridge is where your story is headed, I would be honoured to help you find your place in it.

If you are thinking about buying or selling in Cambridge, Brantford, or Kitchener-Waterloo and you want to work with someone who actually knows what this region means to the people who live here, I would love that conversation. Book a free chat here.

Simon's Final Note

Ma famille est venue de St Fabien de Panet avec peu de choses, mais avec la volonté de travailler et l'espoir qu'une nouvelle ville pourrait devenir chez nous. Cambridge est devenu chez nous. Peut-être que ce sera pareil pour vous.

I became a REALTOR® because of a woman who stood on a corner in downtown Galt and showed me that you could build something real in this city. My aunt Denise Dion did it with grace, dedication, and genuine love for the community she served. I try to do the same every day. Not because it is a strategy, but because it is the only way I know how to do this work.

Three generations ago, my family found exactly what they were looking for right here on the banks of the Grand River.

Maybe yours will too.

Book a free chat with Simon

Simon Royer, REALTOR® at RE/MAX Icon Realty 226-218-6875 | simonsayzsold.ca Search Cambridge homes First time buyer guide

Not intended to solicit buyers or sellers currently under contract. RE/MAX Icon Realty Brokerage, 33-620 Davenport Rd, Waterloo, ON N2V 2C2