Jacques Cartier Square, Montreal, 1908
Jacques Cartier Square, Montreal, 1908
The shores of the St Lawrence gave us our first impression of Canada. During our brief stop in Quebec, we were struck by its magnificent site, as well as by the strange accent of the population. Our reception in Montreal on 15 September could not have been more encouraging. Professor Morin offered us his hospitality, which was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. A few days later, in their drawing room, he introduced us to the French clergymen and their wives. We were introduced to the congregation of the St Jean church two Sundays later.
Meanwhile our furniture, which had been sent by cargo, was held back in England, so that we could neither settle in nor end the generous hospitality of our friends, the Morins. The family needed to be split in two, with Father staying in Montreal with the two eldest, and Mother leaving with the three youngest to spend several weeks in the United States. It was a good omen to renew, soon after our arrival, the good relations that we continued to have with the descendants of our Oncle Guillaume. We were also grateful to be with our dear cousin Charles Carhart, who opened wide the doors of their charming rectory in Vermont. Then there was our lovely cousin Hortense Dufourg, welcoming us in her house on 85th Street in New York, and Addie and John Darrow, receiving us at the Peekskill boarding house where they were spending their elderly years. Finally, our good Quaker friends, Walter and Julia Wood, in their family home on Locust Street in Philadelphia. She had visited us in Geneva many years before. Speaking of them, let’s not forget John, the black butler that little Jacques admired so much.
Having left André and Philippe in Dorset [Vermont] to work on their English at the village school, and, accompanied only by Jacques, we left the rolling hills of Vermont, to follow the Hudson River right up to Peekskill. From there I could see in the distance the property of my Oncle Guillaume on Lake Mohegan, and we got to see the skyscrapers of New York, as well as Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell of Philadelphia. That was an interesting and beautiful detour, confirming the marvels of the industrial and the secular history of the United States. I was to often see these places in the future, but nothing surpasses the impressions of the first visit. I returned to Montreal to preside over our move to Parc Lafontaine, followed the next year to Columbia Street. Father and sons were already weary of their teaching and studying.
You will remember how we got to know Montreal, by going from east to west and north to south in search of a lodging, and how much we admired the Maison Charboneau, at 666 Sherbrooke Street East, opposite Parc Lafontaine. A charming house, with a wonderful view, but it was unfortunately a little too expensive for us.
At the beginning of October, Dad met his principal, Doctor Scrimger, and his colleagues. He became close to all of them. The principal was gracious, but reserved: he maintained a certain distance! The registrar, Professor Fraser, was a scholar. We were also fond of the distinguished Alexander Gordon, renowned for literature. All that Professor Welsh and his colleagues were asking was to welcome us and to celebrate our arrival. As Scots, for us they represented “Old Europe.”
The French-language students were of two groups: those that were registered in theology, very keen to be prepared to give French sermons; and some who came from the Cours Préparatoire, former students of Pointe-aux-Trembles, who wished to learn about French literature, psychology, and history. They were solid chaps, woodsmen, who were more familiar with manual labour than exercises of the spirit, but very keen to learn.
We were greeted kindly, despite a little mistrust with respect to our European reputation for having an overly sharp and critical outlook. However, we admired this vast and beautiful Canada and appreciated its importance and attraction, at a time when the country seemed to be moving rapidly towards a fantastic prosperity. Canadians were happy with the increase in the population, and boasted about the rapid progress of the West, which they described as a paradise.
You remember your early days at school. For the two eldest at the High School of Montreal, where everything was difficult at the beginning, and then easier and easier as you worked conscientiously with that desire of surpassing your new comrades. André and Philippe at that moment were working on their English under the shadow of the belfry in Dorset, near the wonderful Charles Carharts, and Jacques was learning “I see a cat” at the Aberdeen School.
The first winter seemed terribly severe, and in fact it was. We learned about frozen ears, and also how to skate and snowshoe. On Sunday afternoon we went to admire the ice palace built on Fletcher’s Field. We, the parents, not being as sporting as our sons, joined the intellectual and religious community, visiting especially the various French churches and the missionary schools. At Pointe-aux-Trembles, where a position as a member of the committee was reserved for Dad, we were surprised to see in the classes men and women of marriageable age learning the basics, along with young schoolchildren as classmates. The school offered to young people, who had not had the opportunity in their distant woods, the chance to be educated, and hence to improve their status. We were impressed with the Sunday congregation, which listened intently and sang with gusto.
We were also surprised with the brevity of the academic year, which had not even started at the beginning of the month of October. At Christmas, we had enjoyed more than fifteen days of holidays, and already, in mid March, they talked about the final exams and the termination of the courses, with the convocation in the first week of April. We learned that this short academic year corresponded with the needs of the country. All the theological students, even those taking preparatory courses, had to spend at least twenty-four weeks at evangelical camps. The professors had a much-appreciated period of leisure, when they could prepare their courses for the following winter.
There was an important change in our life in 1909. Our apartment on Sherbrooke Street was much too small; we needed to move on. We were advised to consider the English section of Montreal, or Westmount, where we could mingle in an Englishspeaking milieu. Not finding a suitable apartment, we decided to put together all our available funds and buy a house at 98 Columbia Avenue, a house we called “les Colombettes.” The building was elegant on the exterior, with a red-grey front and a small tower, but it had many failings that we discovered later. It was especially difficult to heat, but we were at last going to be at home, with lots of room and a huge basement where we could install a woodworking shop, and a veranda giving onto a tiny garden. It was complete enough that we could avoid finding a country place for the summer, as our boys could be initiated in the Canadian woods at Powters Camp in Saint-Donat-de-Montcalm.
Les Colombettes
As it turned out, the new house was only half-successful. Westmount is very hot in the summer. Perhaps it was because we were in a sixteen-year climatic period in which one suffocates in summer and then freezes in winter. In fact, already in the summer of 1909 our family became unfaithful to the city. I had accepted from Miss de Nottbeck, the friend and admirer of André and Philippe in Dorset, Vermont, an offer to come with our entire gang to spend the holidays in a house on her property. Dad had already left in May for Europe, to occupy Oncle Charles’s pulpit in Neuilly, and afterwards to be present on 12 August at the golden wedding of his parents. The celebration was at the Champ-de-l’Air agricultural college, which his father had created and helped to build over the last thirty years. Meanwhile, Jean, who had been accepted at the preparatory courses at the Presbyterian College, passed the McGill matriculation exam at age seventeen, with good marks, even in English.
As we were all together after that brief separation, it was time to review our family, and for good or bad paint the picture of our boys. Their physical appearance had been very happily recorded in a photograph by Boissonas in Geneva that summer. Their moral character was probably more difficult to capture by a mother who couldn’t pretend to be perfectly objective, nor have any scientific knowledge. Nevertheless, it appeared that Jean was honest, conscientious, and excellent with his youngest brothers, and had a strong sense of devotion to others. That was a serious problem for us when he went to England for a brief exchange. Jean did not have the same linguistic difficulties as his brothers and succeeded very rapidly at the High School, where he was able to do two years in one.
However, if at the beginning my boys had certain difficulties in adapting to their new environment, what was the cause? The language differences certainly, as French education being Catholic in Canada, it was necessary to send them to English schools. Then, the racial differences: their friends, Anglo-Saxons or Scottish almost exclusively, were less complicated, while our sons were a combination of Latin, Germanic, and Slav blood, making them a little more adaptable and less harsh than their peers. In addition, the two eldest had undergone the more rigid French school program, based on French culture, that allowed them to develop a critical sense at an earlier age. Their classmates were more interested in sports and also in the friends of their sisters. All this made my boys a little more timid at the beginning, but they soon developed excellent friendships: Jean with Dewey, Mathewson, Pedley, Bruneau, and others, and Etienne with a group with scientific tastes, of which the leader was the dear and eccentric George Douglas.
It is difficult to speak of Etienne indifferently, as he was an inspiring character who was hard to criticize. His brothers, his teachers, his friends, even his enemies agreed that he was gentle, energetic, intelligent, and polite, and of course no one found it strange that his mother was of the same opinion. I had never had any complaints about this exceptional son, nor had any concerns about him. Everyone, from the chambermaid to the leaders of the university, recognized his qualities. It was only he, it seemed, that ignored them. In July 1910, the newspapers were boasting of his scholastic success, and his picture was in everyone’s hands, but he retired in the background. Later, during the final examinations, he often spent more time preparing his rivals to beat him than in training himself to beat them. A hard worker, he also brought inspiration to others. His playmates later said of him: “If we were a happy and uncomplicated crowd of youngsters, we owed it in good part to Etienne’s influence.”
André was a special “personality” that one should have brought up exclusively. There was in him a tireless physical activity, despite often frail health, a great inventive intensity, and constant effort towards the realization of his ideas. There were sometimes moments of dreamy distraction, already indicating an artistic nature more sensitive to forms and colours and motion than to the abstractions of grammar. André advanced in his life outside the well-beaten paths, always being himself without the dryness and egotism that often degrades eccentric individuals.
Philippe was a very attractive child, with his round face, his lovely eyes, and his laughing mouth. He wasn’t always well-behaved or a serious worker, but was forgiven his few bad humours and disagreements, as we couldn’t bear to be angry with him for very long. In his good moments, his courtesy was perfect. Never will I forget his charming reception, when I visited him at St-Pie on the banks of the Yamaska, where we had sent him to be looked after with Jacques while his brothers became “coureurs de bois” at Powters Camp. He had the same joyful greeting during my visits to Stanstead College, where we had sent him as an apprentice, with the hope that he would become serious about his studies. Later, at the beginning of the war, what a reputation he gained with the neighbours at 16 Island Lake, who knew this devoted and helpful young man, who was always available. Philippe had what it took to be a perfect gentleman.
Does Jacques deserve any praise for having been a polite and well-behaved child, or do his attributes come from a particularly bright star that shone the night he was born on that 17 April 1901, at the Maison Blanche? Delightful baby, gracious little boy, pleasant schoolboy, who grew up with no setbacks or inhibitions in a sunny atmosphere, because he was himself an optimist and a peacemaker, with an instinctive horror of conflicts. This pleasant nature could have become a weakness, but he proved later that, if his glove was soft and supple, the hand inside it was very firm. What an attractive Boy Scout, exemplified the day he received the Canadian Cup for his dexterity in all fields. That dexterity was tested over the years as he produced a series of ingenious electrical gadgets for his mother. His ideas pleased everyone.
Youth can be easily transplanted, whereas adults have more difficulty in starting again. Dad had considerable difficulties with the English language at the beginning. He conquered it for day-to-day conversation, but nevertheless always suffered. He was passionate about language. For him it was disappointing not to be able to use in his courses and sermons the rich vocabulary, the fluidity of expression, and the mastery of words, which in his mother tongue came so easily. Fortunately, the greater part of his work was in French.
One also had to adapt to a foreign mentality, and with enormous patience conquer any jealousies and prejudices. I mention it, as it would be wrong to pretend that we were always warmly received and enjoyed immediate success. Up until our arrival, we often had to deal with adversities, but never against hostile people. Now, quite to the contrary, the material conditions were easier but the human obstacles were often greater. Fortunately, at the Presbyterian College the atmosphere reflected the good nature and integrity of its staff. We had such a charming reception from everyone, and they very quickly became our friends, and often came to visit us. Relations with the students were also excellent.
Being used to sharing a few of my husband’s tasks, I would have been quite disoriented if I had been unable to pursue such activities. Happily, I found an opportunity in developing a student-relations program.
DURING THE MONTH OF JULY 1911, the family rented an attractive holiday cottage belonging to Pastor Masse on the shore of Long Lake in the 16 Island Lake area in the Laurentians. The boys found the area so pleasant that they begged Dad to consider the possibility of buying what Jacques described as a little point of land, with a little house and a little boat, which would really be ours. To start with, the idea seemed to be beyond our means, but it happened to coincide with a comment that Pastor Scott, from Perth, had made to Dad while he was at the annual meeting of our church in Ottawa. “Professor, as I understand it you came to Canada with your sons. Let me give you some advice: buy yourself – it won’t ruin you – a farm where you can spend your summers, and where your sons can learn to handle the tools of the carpenter and the gardener.” The opportunity presented itself one Sunday as we were questioning a neighbour about a picturesque corner of their property. Her husband, a John Morrow, was quick to respond, “I can’t sell you a parcel of my property. If you wish to settle here, buy the whole farm.” The farm had 143 acres of land, with reasonable buildings that could be renovated. He was asking eight hundred dollars. We took our time to reflect and to consult several friends. Dad’s father – it was his last letter – wrote to him to encourage him to buy it. He regretted not having attempted such an adventure. The deal was done, and that’s why, a quarter of a century later, I can write these words in a large, comfortable room, which had been John Morrow’s stable. It was of humble origins but couldn’t be better today.
We named the property La Clairière, and during the following winter the most audacious plans were conceived. We would have a farmer who would have cows, pigs, and chickens. We prepared to buy some lovely Swiss bells for the herd. But luckily, very luckily, the farmer that we had in mind backed out at the last minute. The fact is that he would not have succeeded and we would have sunk with him, as Laurentian farms aren’t worth much, and their upkeep requires more money than they generate. So events forced us to abandon our plans, and attack the log cabin that old Cassy had built twenty-five years earlier, and John Morrow had expanded.
I WAS CLEARLY NOT VERY USEFUL for my husband’s professional duties, and also not much help in the preparation of my sons’ homework, which doesn’t play an important role in Canadian education. I had originally spent a good deal of time helping them with their English, but as they began to play sports with their friends, the family playtime also became less frequent. There remained, of course, our meals, gay and noisy, our evenings around our lamp, and our “Sundays,” which in Canada, in the good old days before the war, were still sought after.
Having been relieved of a part of my usual duties, I gained a little more time to spend on my household, which was necessary, as we now had only one housemaid. In Paris we had added a temporary to our full-time servant. And what faithful servants have I had during my lifetime: Pauline, Louise, Amélie, Berthe Joli, Ellen Morrow, Rose Fluckinger, and many others.
I was president during twenty-five consecutive years of the Societé Missionaire des Dames Françaises de Montréal. In addition I undertook many activities involving the poor, the unhappy, and the unemployed, but I could perhaps be criticized for not having found, prior to the war effort, a useful community activity using my talents. Unfortunately, as everything in Canada seemed to be done in committees, there was little room for the enterprising housewife.
SEEING LA CLAIRIÈRE TODAY, still rustic but so attractive and comfortable, one couldn’t imagine what was once a log cabin when we bought it. The big room looked like a stable, with its many half-high partitions. The bedroom was far worse, with its ugly flooring and its rotten walls, beneath the large, square beams covered with decomposing plaster and old rags. The gallery was shaky, the house was surrounded with stumps and old boards, the garden filled with thistles, and all around it was a bare clearing, denuded of any shade or vegetation. Yet our collective optimism was such that none of us doubted that the oil from our elbows, more reliable than a magician’s wand, would be able to transform it.
It was a bit of a strange project, considering that our talents were more suited to cooking blackberry tarts than building log cabins! Our truck driver, arriving on the first day with a stove, a mattress, and a bunch of fruit bushes, thought we were crazy. We were there, on this crisp day of May, and we lost no time moving in. The mattress was stretched out on the floor for sleeping, the stove with its pipe through the window was lit, and we found two stumps for tables and a candle in a bottle as a lamp. With this extensive installation in place, we ran to the garden to plant our blackberries. It was for Dad and I our first very brief stay at La Clairière.
The future blackberry pies a reality, we needed to start building, and that’s exactly what we did during the summer holiday. Dad was the supervisor and carpenter. The bedboards and various objects started to appear from his shop. Etienne was the architect and foreman, and his brothers took turns as apprentice carpenters, roofers, floor men, and plumbers. Jean would have preferred to be with us, but it was already the fourth summer since our arrival in Canada, and, as a student at McGill, he was spending his summer holidays, as is common in this country, at a salaried job. The jobs varied between salesman, tutor, or office boy, but he learned about business and was able to participate in paying his university fees. In addition, he began to familiarize himself with the different regions of the province, as well as penetrating the different classes of the population. It was an interesting initiative for the observant and broad-minded boy that he was.
We needed first of all to transform the big room, and what a charming room it became, with its original rose-coloured pine walls, a solid parquet floor, and, in the evening, the crackling of the burning pine and maple logs in the Franklin stove. Larger windows, a bookcase, rustic armchairs, André’s paintings on the walls, a big carpet, a large sofa, and in the middle, the family table. A big lamp focused on the family and gave the walls and beams rose-coloured reflections and a sense of intimacy. In the daytime there were superb views, of the garden on one side, and on the other towards the lawn, the lake, the hills, and the woods.
Upstairs, we were transforming our bedroom. We built a kitchen, and added a room in the barn next door, as well as a veranda at each end of the house. Later we created the sweet and rustic small dining room, with a communicating larder. And so, each spring, the work inside and out restarted with renewed vigour. Outdoors was important, and we planted bushes, fir trees, larches to frame the house, and an orchard that was to suffer from all the problems of Canadian winters. Then there was the creation of a vegetable garden, flowerbeds, a rock garden, the seeding of a lawn, and later, even a large excavation on the slope to locate a future tennis court.
All this work, undertaken without the help of any specialists, was crowned in 1915 when Philippe and Jacques, with the help of pipes, parts of old motors, and an enormous beer barrel, succeeded in installing running water. After many delays and failures, all of a sudden, one morning, a piercing cry was heard. It was Philippe, throwing his arms in the air and exclaiming: “The water is rising, the water is rising,” just as triumphant as Christopher Columbus years ago when he had cried “Land, land.”
Often, when I turn on what we call here a champelure and witness the abundant clear water, I think of Philippe. Meanwhile, the completed house was rendered in white, with wood trimmings, unifying all the connections and additions in the same tint. We had, on the shores of Lake Long, a house like the one we had left in the Swiss countryside, and inside were all the beds, couches, bookcases, stools, benches, and twelve tables of different sizes that Dad had built.
OUR NEIGHBOUR: Johnny Morrow, the previous owner of La Clairière, was six feet tall, with angular features, a Celtic humour, and a strong local accent. He was energetic with his axe, but relaxed at rest, as he smoked slowly his old pipe. He came from an Irish Protestant background, a tiny clan lost in the French–Catholic population. Without a doubt, he was the most colourful character of the area!
In 1911, when we spent our first holidays in the Laurentians at the Maison Masse, we liked to row to the end of 16 Island Lake area, to buy milk at the Morat farm of Lake Long. We then had a chat with Johnny, while his wife, always with a baby on her hip, worked in her kitchen, and the little Violette, with blue eyes and bright blonde hair, milked the cows of the milk we were to take away.
It was at the end of one of those trips that we had made that rather innocent remark about his property. We had asked him: “Mr. Morrow, we admire your place so much that we are just wondering if you would sell us a small lot, just big enough to build a bungalow and a boathouse?”
“Well, Mrs,” was his answer, “it’s this way. I have a mind to buy a farm in Laurel, where my children could get some education, ’cause I know no more than signing my name, and that’s not enough nowadays. But don’t you people ask me to sell a bit of me land. It would be like asking me to sell a limb of me cow. It’s the whole cow, or no cow. It’s the whole 150 acres of Johnny Morrow’s farm, or it’s not a square foot.”
The next year the Morrows moved, and we replaced them. To our stupefaction, we learned that our friend, completely illiterate, was named president of the Laurel Protestant School Commission!
However, Johnny was nostalgic about Lake Long, and sometimes came to wander in the fields that he had created, and where he had embellished the place in his own fashion by cutting the trees right up to the house. “When I bought the house from old Cassy,” he would say, “the front room was too low, so I chopped the beams and saved the boards and lifted the ceiling about sixteen inches. A feller should not have to stoop when he enters is own home. The right thing for the master is to hold his head up, and keep his hat on his head, says I.”
The famous day when Brunette, our own cow, strayed, the former proprietor was making one of his nostalgic wanderings. Hearing the poor animal moving in the brush, he ran in and disengaged her horns from the branches and returned her to the house, saying to Tante Julia, who had been visiting from France, “Remember, Miss, that our cows are all right as long as you treat them well. But they are awfully fond of their independence, so never again try to tie down a Canadian cow!”
SEVERAL YEARS LATER, we heard one day that our good neighbour, Father Millette, was in negotiations with a Frenchman desiring to buy a lovely point of land, with its magnificent pine tree. It jutted out in our lake and formed, on both sides, bays with deep green water. In answer to our questions, the old man answered that he owned this land, while Morrow insisted that it belonged to us. It was finally decided in a friendly manner that Millette would interrupt the negotiations until such time as an official surveyor came to settle the issue. That was done, and here is what Johnny Morrow, the following spring, told us about the arbitration.
“Father Millette, the surveyor, and I were to meet on the frozen lake on a Tuesday at 10 o’clock. So I gets up early, eats my breakfast, puts on a warm sweater and a muffler, for it looked like a North wind, and off I goes through the fresh snow, saying to misself, says I: ‘Johnny Morrow, you’re in Professor Bieler’s shoes today, so you must behave just right and do him honour.’ Suddenly I stop and sez I to misself, ‘Why Johnny, you’ve forgotten the most important thing, that is your Bible.’ So back I turn, fetch the old book, puts it into my breast pocket, and goes off again. But what do I see standing on the ice in front of the cottage? Quite a crowd waiting for me. The surveyor of course, and Father Millette, but also three of his sons! That will never do says I. I could have brought along my three sons just as well, but what’s the use, measurements are measurements? ‘Father Millette, send your three boys back home, we three men can settle the thing between us, and we’ll begin by swearing on this here Bible that we are going to be fair and honest on the job.’ So we swore, then took up the chain and made straight for the old spruce on tother side of the point, which I had marked with me axe long ago. The surveyor found it was correct, Father Millette had to give in, and I goes back home thinking I had earned my dinner, and had stood firm and straight in the Professor’s shoes, sure enough!”
The friendship of the Morrows during all these years had been a real benediction and had resulted in a series of exchanges and good deals.
Are these hollow spots in the floor of the big room worrying? Johnny arrives with a pipe in his mouth, axe on his shoulders. He slides under the house and, with the help of a jack, straightens out in no time the problem undulations. Does the garden need to be completely dug out? Bertie arrives with his pleasant smile and finishes the digging in one day. Would it be exciting to have a grand trip in a carriage? Stanley appears with his old cart harnessed with two half-wild horses, and there we are bumping along through the potholes on our way to a picnic at the Rivière Perdue. Are we short of butter and cream at La Clairière? Violette with blue eyes brings us fresh products from her creamery. Are we short of help at home? Ellen Morrow, Johnny’s sister, comes to give us a hand, and becomes our dear and faithful servant for several years, until death takes her away.
Winter doesn’t interrupt these good relations. The Morrows seem to be in good health, but hereditary goiter is a problem and brings them sometimes to Montreal for an operation. For the mother it was serious and took a long time. Her husband decided to undertake the great adventure of a trip to Montreal, and arrived with large ambitions and very modest means. He would eat his meals with us, but where would he live? He thought about the Windsor Hotel, which had been highly recommended. “I went there to see if it would suit me,” said he. “It seemed right enough: smart and comfortable, but just a bit too noisy for me, so I decided to stay at the Immigrant’s Home round the corner, and we sure had a jolly night in that dormitory: A Scotsman danced a jig, a Welshman gave us some rousing songs, an Englishman prayed and sang hymns, and I told them some of me old yarns until they roared and roared with laughing. We had a better time than them folks at that Windsor place, let alone the big money it costs.”
EACH SUMMER TWO GET-TOGETHERS END THE SEASON: a tea at the Morrows, where we feast on cream and fresh bread with delicious jams, and then the party at our house. One arrives on the famous team that we have harnessed as best we could. One inspects the improvements that we have made to the property, where our friends recognize every rock. One takes the risk of a rowboat ride – except for Johnny, who swears that he has never had a bath in his life and that he was too old to start now! One has tea outside and one leaves wishing for another happy reunion the next year.
OUR RELATIONS WITH OUR CLOSEST NEIGHBOURS, the Millettes, swarming on one of the shores of the lake, was just as excellent. The Patriarchs, across the way, had sixteen beautiful children, all married now. They would on their own prevent the Canadian race from disappearing, as they stopped counting grandchildren and great-grandchildren when they reached the imposing total of seventy-five. At the present time, the number has apparently increased substantially. When we have the time to chat, the old pioneer tells us about his work as a lumberman creating new pastures for his farm. The dear old lady, with her remaining lovely Lorraine accent, talks about her childhood memories: the invasion of her native village by the Prussians in 1870, the shells that exploded, the bodies in the streets, the wailing in the houses, and all the horrors of war. Then she faced the daring immigration of her courageous mother with her two young children, the passage, and the miserable life in the Laurentian forests. Finally everything works out when her lovely fourteenyear-old daughter marries Adonias Millette, the pioneer of Lake Long. With hard work, thrift, and common sense, the valiant couple little by little attained the ease that they enjoy today.
ONE MUST SAY THAT THESE PEASANTS, a cross between Normans and Lorraines, know how to deal with opportunities. We saw it in the Pointe deal. We had already witnessed this talent one Sunday in the early years when Father Millette, very impressive in his formal attire, walked up slowly towards our house with a serious and diplomatic expression. He had the sense to begin his conversation with a chat about the rain and the sunshine, before getting to his subject, which he presented more or less as follows:
“My eldest son, Adonius, is married, and quite rightly he has asked for a concession from the Province of Quebec. They gave him twenty-five acres that borders your lot. That’s where there is the Petit Lac and the cottage where they will live for the official three years. So, you will understand, he will need a road to get there, and the Quebec law states that it’s the closest neighbour that must build this road. It will be necessary to locate, dig, ballast, transport, level, and build two bridges over the stream. This is why I have come to arrange this matter with you and to propose that I and my boys do the job for 150 dollars. It’s a bargain at that price.”
We were floored. We had found the eight hundred dollars for the land, and several hundred dollars worth of boards, beams, tools, nails, paint, furniture, boats – so much that we wondered how we would pay for it – and on top of this, where would we find it? Another 150 dollars in order for the Millette son to move into the neighbouring forest? Are they taking advantage of our being foreigners and city dwellers? … We will not get caught in the trap!
We sent home our negotiator as politely as our indignation allowed, and as soon as our little man in his Sunday best disappeared beyond the corner of the barn, there was a family conclave. We took the decision to profit from Jean’s apprenticeship at Maître Lafleur’s law office, to confuse our plaintiff somewhat. Jean did the research that was asked, but he found no laws on this subject. It was therefore necessary to consider common law, very powerful in Quebec, and research it at our expense. Johnny Morrow and his sons undertook the task at a reasonable cost. It was in this way, with our financial help, that they studied the regulations of the road network of Argenteuil County, that we stayed in good terms with our first neighbours, and that the Morrows were able to buy the separator that allowed them to sell us delicious cream and send butter to Lachute.
OTHER NEIGHBOURS ARE IN less pleasant businesses. The first arrivals, often during our gardening visit of 24 May, are the mosquitoes and the blackflies. Tante Julia from time to time seeing the cheeks and the arms of her nephews covered in blood (that was during the worst season in May and June), ran after them with a smoking pot, hoping to scatter the enemy with a barrage of smoke. At the beginning of August, we were relieved by applying citronella oil, and soon these nasty battalions disappeared of their own accord.
Other neighbours also difficult to dislodge are those who without permission choose to live under the house: amateur whistlers, skunks, very knowledgeable in culinary delights, who penetrated into the cellar, leaving everything upside-down, as well as their special perfume. It was necessary to eliminate them using traps or gunshots. What a gallop we did across the field chasing one of these lovely, furry animals, dragging behind her long majestic tail, and, while running, using without any hesitation the defensive weapon that Providence had given her. If one succeeds in killing her, one of our neighbours will have a scarf and a fur almost as beautiful as one from the silver fox.
Certain years when the winter is long and harsh, the wolves and the bears approach the farms, hoping to find food. My plan to eat fresh lamb and economize on our budget was thwarted, as the following summer we found bloody pieces of wool hanging on the fences, proof that the relationship between wolves and lambs hadn’t changed since the good La Fontaine. Sometimes a friendly bear competed with us in the picking of raspberries, and we shot one a few metres from the house in the upper woods.
The Millettes’ horses are welcomed when they bring us a cart filled with resinous bark for our stove, or they delight the children in a cart ride. They are real pests when they wander and graze at night around the house. Mr Bieler then jumps out of bed, puts on his nightgown, and chases them, carrying a lamp in one hand and brandishing a cane with the other. It’s a real theatrical comedy and funnier for us than for him!
However the horses are the most polite and most honest creatures in comparison with Mrs Cow, who is capable of playing every trick possible. You know the tale of Brunette written by André. She was an angel as compared to the misdeeds of our neighbours’ cows. Listen to this:
One Sunday when no one was guarding the house, a whole herd, following the lakeshore behind the bushes, succeeded in getting right onto our lawn. When we returned from a walk, the cows were chewing the remainder of a meal that seemed to us to be suspect. In fact, the buckets used to soak next day’s washing, sitting near the lake, were upside down, the sheets, tablecloths, pillow cases, and napkins were on the ground in shreds, while these greedy animals were enjoying the soapy water that they had drunk – and my best towel, which they had swallowed.
We had had a first sample of their appetite the day that Philippe tied our rowboat to the wharf at 16 Island Lake, leaving at the bottom of the boat rolls of cardboard destined to insulate the ceiling of one of our mansard-roofed windows. Having left early the next day with a small cart to fetch the rolls, he returned distressed, saying that they had disappeared! There were animal footprints everywhere on the shore, but all that remained of the cardboard was the wire and the metal pins that held it together. How to explain this robbery? The next day Mr Millette was passing on the road.
“Tell me neighbour,” asked Father, “are your cows feeling well today?”
“Not so well,” was the answer. “They must have eaten something that didn’t agree with them. They are all moaning and haven’t produced any milk.”
“Nothing surprising,” replied Father, “judging from their extraordinary appetite for my ceiling. It’s the marine algae contained in the cardboard that tempted them. You have lost your milk, my rolls have disappeared, which means, I guess, that we are even.”
If the upstairs room was particularly warm during the hot spell it was the fault of the Millette cows!
If there are animals that are rude and bothersome, there are some that are charming: yellow goldfinches, bluebirds, robins, thrushes calling with a flute-like voices, and these adorable hummingbirds with their long beaks, sucking the sugar from the roses at the edge of the veranda. There are also these lovely brown squirrels that come to pick up the crumbs under our lunch table.
To whom will we pass on La Clairière when we are no longer here? That’s what we often ask ourselves when we think of all the effort, of all the work that was accomplished.
THERE IS NOTHING OF GREAT IMPORTANCE to say about our 1909–10, 1910–11 winters. The family was all there and well-unified. I ran the household, and was happy in the evening to welcome the family in the Les Colombettes salon. On Sunday I had begun to invite students, a custom I maintained, which brought me great popularity amongst the students.
Dad preached sometimes in one and sometimes in another of our French churches. His ordinary theology and philosophy courses were taken by a limited number of students, and our young French pupils were finding the demands of the authorities of the college to be excessive. They were asked to undertake the same English studies as their English friends, on top of their French program. Dad also gave some lessons in French literature to a group of ladies, and from time to time a conference at the Alliance Française. We were interested in the meetings of the Cercle Français, where literature and music were discussed, and where we had made many friends. We appreciated especially the polite and distinguished secretary, Madame Sophie Cornu. She had retired from her teaching at Macdonald College, and had found a place for Dad’s sister, Hélène, who came from Paris to join us in 1910.
The summer of 1911 was for a number of reasons to become important in our life. It was, to start with, at the end of that spring that we had the glorious success of Etienne’s entrance exams to McGill. The principal, Mr. Dixon, said that his results were unprecedented, and would never be repeated. Then, Dad’s departure for Nova Scotia, where he was bold enough to accept the pulpit of the Presbyterian Church of Stellarton during the month of July. This was a unique opportunity to get into contact with these jolly and very intelligent Scottish groups in Pictou County. This visit to Stellarton introduced him to the Halifax Presbyterian College, known as Pine Hill, which two years later honoured him with a doctorate in theology, honoris causa.
AFTER THE STORIES OF OUR NEIGHBOURS, human, four-footed, or winged, it’s appropriate to consider our boys. They were certainly worthy of considerable praise for their skilful and steadfast work, for the harmony that had never ceased to rule between them, and for their joy as they went from play to work. We are proud to think that they grew up in an environment with a healthy work ethic, a measure of cheerfulness, and a basis of profound happiness.
There were little clashes. Etienne’s precision made it difficult for him to compromise; he didn’t accept a straight line not drawn with a plumb line. There was adversity: like the time our second-hand motors didn’t work, and we were forced to transport all the construction equipment by rowboat, and pulled by our brave rowers. It suddenly capsized, with the contents disappearing in the water. There were other misadventures that were so amusing that we laughed instead of crying.
Jacques, despite being just eight years old, was already very talented at nailing the roof tiles, but found the hours up there all by himself long and hot, and he wanted his little friend to join him. This new worker was lifted onto the beams that covered the big veranda, and soon our two friends banged hard and in rhythm. But at that moment the dinner bell rang, and at the same time there was a formidable clap of thunder, and soon the rain flowed down the roof and poured directly into our soup bowl, bubbling away in the kettle below. It appeared that Jacques’s friend had not sealed the joints properly. Here on in the amateurs would be excluded!
IN 1913 WE WENT TO EUROPE WITH ETIENNE AND JACQUES. We saw parents and friends, fascinated to hear our tales: we told them about the endless frontier and the opportunity for millions of Europeans to come and seek their fortune. To their ears it sounded like the Eldorado, dreamt and sung about by the ancient poets.—Blanche Bieler (BB)
Westmount, 6 April 1913
To my children,
As your mother and I leave for Europe, we are feeling the need to leave you a few helpful words in the event of a tragedy or an accident in Europe that would leave you without our care. These things happen, and one needs to be ready for anything.
If such a development did happen, it wouldn’t be us that would suffer. We are leaving our trust and our confidence to Him, who never abandons his own. We are also asking Him for his grace and His goodness in overseeing your needs.
We are asking that the four youngest accept their eldest brother, Jean’s, affection and authority, to ensure their moral and material needs. We expect that the youngest would do their best to remain unified. Etienne would share the responsibility with Jean.
Your resources would be very modest. Mother’s assets are about $20,000, to which is added the premium from two life insurance policies, one of $2,000 from the London Union (see attached document), and the other for $2,000 from the Mutual Life of Waterloo. These two policies are intended to cover the loan of $4,000 that I gave to your mother for the purchase of Les Colombettes. Certain better investments with these funds would have allowed her to generate $1,200 to $1,400 per year.
I own Les Colombettes. It would have to be sold or let. If let, it should generate about $700 to $800 per year, but $100 in taxes needs to be deducted.
I have a special insurance of $2,000, covering travel accidents in steamships or railways (see attached documents).
La Clairière is an asset, but we have to consider the $400 of further costs for property improvements, as well as $40 for Etienne’s trip to Europe. Once finished, the property could generate $100 per year. You also have a little money at the Caisse d’Epargne Fatio in Geneva.
These small investments, well administered, could generate about $1,800 per year. That’s an almost secure daily bread, during your years of education. I think that your Tante Julia, so faithfully attached to all of you, would agree to come and share your life until Jacques is of age. You would set yourselves up in a modest lodging, and each one would do his best to share his possessions.
Jean could take a part of his share to fund his law degree. Etienne also, for his engineering degree. André, once he has graduated from his technical school, should seek a job in an architectural firm. Philippe, once he has passed his matriculation, could think about becoming a businessman. Jacques seems to be well suited to become an engineer.
It would be good if your small inheritance remained intact, other than for necessary expenditures, right up to the time that Jacques is of age, and that Tante Julia is still with you.
Dr Scrimger, Professor Morin, and Mr Eugene Lafleur would give you necessary advice. The latter would be invited to assist you with regard to all legal matters. Tante Hélène would, of course, help.
I would like Tante Julia to be your official guardian, if the laws of Quebec permit it. If not, Professor Morin could be considered.
Pray that God bless you dear children, and that He teaches you to serve and love Him.
Charles
THE PRE-WAR HOLIDAYS WERE WONDERFUL. As the renovations advanced, there was more time for entertainment: swimming in the lake, climbing the minor summits of the area, trips by canoe to explore the lakes and portages, and long walks. Jacques’s birthday was a big occasion, and he invited the whole neighbourhood for a vast picnic. After the baseball game, we picked up the provisions and we finished the evening by a huge bonfire, telling stories and singing many songs. Then another party in September, decorated by autumn colours and filled with lovely surprises.
In 1914 we lived once again at La Clairière, braving the great horde of mosquitoes and blackflies. Dad had come in the spring with Etienne and André to complete the installations left in a quite rudimentary state in 1912, and they installed panelling and flooring, while Jacques Grellet, a relative of our cousin Virst, was planting a garden with every possible vegetable.—(BB)
EARLY THAT SUMMER IT WAS THE ANNUAL LAKE FRASER PICNIC, a good twohour walk from La Clairière. It was a splendid afternoon, and the family certainly didn’t think that this party might be uniting them all for the last time. Since they were bringing the food, and Blanche wasn’t feeling very energetic, they stopped at the Morrows to pick up some supplies. Johnny decided to drop out, because the barley needed to be harvested and he was concerned about leaving his animals. They didn’t seem to be in a rush, but all of a sudden Blanche felt a push, and landed in the bottom of the hay cart. Four strong men dressed in white picked up the tow bar, and, despite her cries and protests, they took off at full speed along the sandy shore. Three miles later, they arrived at Laurel on the shore of Lake Fraser. Her horses recovered their breath and they built a huge bonfire, followed by a picnic, perfumed with smoke and the scent of blackberries. Later still, as an Egyptian Princess, but at a more moderate rate, they returned her home on the lower road.—(CB)
Lunch at La Clairière
