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For many west end Montrealers, the iconic bovines that have long overlooked St-Jacques St. are a stepping stone into fond memories of ice cream, milkshakes, family and community.

After disappearing from public view in 1997, the cows are now fully restored and back on display at Parmalat Canada’s dairy plant at 7470 St-Jacques St. near Elmhurst Ave. in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.

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The massive cow heads hung near the Elmhurst Dairy’s ice cream shop entrance for as long as anyone can recollect. Growing up in Lachine, Marcelle Gagné remembers her father taking her and her brother to visit the cows and eat ice cream as far back as 1949. The ice cream was good, she recounted, but it was the cows that got the kids excited. Back in her day, the ice cream shop had an all-male staff that wore white aprons and hats. The cows, she said, were called “Elsie and her boyfriend Beauregard.”

By the time the ’60s rolled in, Milton Epps knew them as “Bessie and Viola.” The cows looked right in his living room window as he grew up across the street. He remembers sitting on his porch with his family, eating ice cream and watching sweet-toothed customers line up all the way down the sidewalk to get a cone.