Working Hands

By Deborah Ouellette Small, Old Town

As long as I can remember, I thought my mama old. She didn't smell bad like the pepe who sat in the last pew at church. It was her face that gave it away. Around her blueberry eyes she wore tiny worry lines. Every time mama would come close to me, I would play in her face. It became my secret adventure. Soon she turned into an object, like a worn out road map, both tired and frayed around the edges.

As long as I can remember, my mama's hands would always bleed and crack. Especially when hanging wash effortlessly outside in the dead of winter. For sure, mama's working hands were not like the ones attached to the ladies I used to cut out from the Sears and Roebuck catalog. Theirs were soft, delicate, and shapely formed.

As long as I can remember, my mama had no silver boxes with red satin ribbons. Instead, she possed an old rusty ironing board. Behind the bathroom door and under a naked light bulb, she would stand for hours in nonsupportive shoes pressing clothes to perfection. Her playful spirit dampened, like the wet cotton cloth she used to press creases in my brother's church pants.

As long as I can remember, my mama had no time for foolishness. She never wore the exquisite Christmas bathrobe that still hangs in her closet today. It was a gift from papa many decades ago. "My kitchen is a functional kitchen and not a showcase for pretty things." She lamented.

As long as I can remember, mama mastered in the art of family devotion. Like all the saints, she was a true sacrificial giver. As long as I can remember, she gave and gave and gave. As long as I can remember . . . as long as I can remember.

All Contents are Copyright©Deborah Ouellette Small, 1998

What Effect Does Culture Have On Aging?

By Lanette Landry Petrie, Bradley

Culture is a set of values a group of people hold and the behaviors that stem from those values. Each of us is a composite of a number of cultural factors such as gender, economic situation, religion, rural vs urban, physical capacity, as well as ethnic origin. All of these factors help to shape our image of many things in our lives, including aging. Cultural perceptions of becoming old and being old have much to do with how we think about aging. Sokolonsky tells us in "Images of Aging," that variables such as degree of Family support, gender, or class position might alter the images associated with aging. I want to develop this idea further by focusing on women in general and, in particular, a group of elderly Franco-American nuns I interviewed.

Mythic images of the elderly were used in preindustrial societies to teach about the life cycle of a people. Folktales often included stories of glorified elders with powers for guiding, healing and protection. Old women were sometimes viewed as nurturing matriarchs or feared as evil witches. In many of these societies the role of women changed after their reproductive years and they became the holders of the family stories, held control over daughters-in-law, became peace makers, and were seen assuming greater authority.

In today's societies, "elderly women tend to have life circumstances quite differently from elderly men." (Taeuber, 56) The nation's oldest and fastest growing population today is unmarried women with increased impairment, living alone with economics problems. (Barer, 59) Barer continues to tells us that men have an advantage physically and economically while women have more extensive social networks.

In Cambodia old people are considered very important to their culture. The elderly continue to learn the practice of Buddhism and young people depend on the elders to teach the philosophies to them. (Lao, 52) In Nigeria aged people are not only respected, but well cared for either by their families or by the community as a whole. The elderly are seen as a blessing both to the family and the village and the young make a yearly contribution to their care. (Ugbaja, 63)

Family is the center of life for the Vietnamese. They believe that the old deserve the highest place in the family. Mary Meigs tells us her experience of aging as a lesbian has shown her that old age can free women to live new lives detached from patriarchy. These are only a few of the stories which tell us about the effect of family, gender and class position on the cultural image of aging.

Because of the importance of the Catholic Church in the lives of Franco-Americans, young women were given two choices for their lives - wife/mother or religious nun. Through my interviews with ten Franco-American elderly nuns, I came to believe that choosing the life of a religious provided women with opportunities which were not possible for wives/mothers and may have affected their aging.

Coming from families with as many as fifteen children with six being the fewest, these ten women chose the life of the convent as an alternative, in some cases, to the raising of more babies - their own. For some it was the only chance for an education. Most Franco-American families were not pro-education, particularly for girls. As farmers and mill workers there was little money for anything but the essentials. With their strong faith in God and the Catholic Church, life in the convent offered girls a respected way out. Nine of the sisters I interviewed were over eighty with one in her seventies. Included among them were six teachers, one pharmacist, one librarian, one in social work and one in business affairs. All are presently living in their Motherhouse where they are provided with nursing care, if and when they need it, and productive activities such as helping in the gift shop, playing the organ for Mass, helping in the mailroom, visiting the sick, making crafts to sell in the gift shop, and praying.

One of the general aspects of aging is the loss of meaning in life. These women have aged well in that regard. Some of the reasons may be their philosophy of life which includes the belief in the sanctity of all life. They have always had a purpose for their life. Even the value of prayer and suffering contribute to their acceptance of their position in the life cycle. Their lives have included planned vacations and time for reflection.

Another aspect of aging is the change in socio/economic position. The nuns financial needs have never been a worry. Although they often had little, it was not their worry as for a place to sleep or food to eat. The socio/economic condition for these nuns has never changed.

Loss of physical and mental ability is also seen as an aspect of aging. The sisters loss of physical ability has only changed their duties to incorporate what they were capable of. Health care and dental care have always been available to them. There is a sense of worldly innocence which has provided a level of stresslessness which may contribute to their good mental health.

In looking at the Franco-American culture of aging, four significant aspects arise. For the nuns they are as follows: 1) the loss of home language, French, 2) lack of decision making in the convent contrasted with major decision making in their professions, 3) frequent moving, and 4) loss of family.

1) Entering English language only religious communities meant losing their language for these French speaking women. Some were told not to speak French in their convents because it was perceived that they might be talking about someone behind their backs. In spite of that, several of these sisters still speak French today. Some were missioned to French speaking communities and so continued to speak French with parishioners. For some, their families continued to speak French with them when they visited.

2) As nuns, they took vows of obedience which meant that they would accept whatever they were told to do. Some of these sisters held positions with a lot of authority and made important decisions, but as private women were expected to be submissive, which they were. There are pros and cons to this behavior. Along with decision making often comes responsibility for other peoples lives which can create a lot of stress. One sister was Assistant Director of Mercy Hospital when mandatory retirement at sixty-five went into practice. So at sixty-five she felt compelled to comply with that rule and retired. This meant for her, opening a pharmacy in northern Maine and operating it for another eleven or twelve years. She retired again to parish work for another eight or nine years when it then became necessary for her to have a mastectomy, then by-pass surgery and is now helping in the Motherhouse gift shop and mailroom. Stress as we know can cause many physical illnesses.

3) Sisters were often transferred from one place to another to fill vacant positions in schools and to keep them from becoming too rooted in one place. They were asked to leave their family and friends over and over again. It was necessary for them to continue to make new friends and acquaintances. Some living arrangements were less than friendly. Sometime the local priest gave the sisters a hard time or there were personality clashes within the house. Each sister had little control over her living arrangements.

4) When these sisters left home to enter the convent they literally left home. The convent became their family. The rules were very strict about family involvement, or the lack of , in their lives. Many sisters were not allowed to attend family weddings or funerals or even be alone at home with their parents or siblings. For Franco-Americans this is a major loss. The family is central to the life of the Franco-American people. Not to be able to celebrate and grieve together was extremely difficult. Although they need not worry for their own financial needs, they were often torn by not being able to help their families financially as they saw them struggling. For one sister the decision became critical when her mother died leaving small children to be raised by a sister who was younger than she. Her father operated a bakery and she felt she was needed at home. Through prayer and discernment she remained in the convent but not without a great deal of soul searching.

In looking at the four cultural characteristics for Franco-American women who became wives and mothers, life was hard in its own way. Education was out of the question for them. They went to school until they were probably fourteen then helped at home or got married. Women married early, often to ease the burden at home, to men who needed someone to have their children and to take care of them. There was the need to have large families in order for the children to help work and support the family along with the Catholic Church's strong stand against birth control. There were few convenience and little money. The only medical help was from a town doctor and mid-wives. Many women lost babies at birth or through miscarriages. There were twenty-four losses of children in the families of the ten nuns I interviewed. Medical care was very rare and dental care practically non-existent for most. The economic conditions varied but for the most part, Franco-Americans in Maine were the working poor. They were farmers and mill workers with little education and large families to care for. There was seldom enough to meet present needs let alone plan for retirement. Old age was left to God, along with the whole of life. Life offered many hardships such as accidents and complications from childbirth.. The stress of life took its toll on their health. High blood pressure, diabetes, and heart ailments were typical.

1) French was spoken in early Franco-American homes and continues to this day in some. It provided a real sense of belonging. Most Maine communities had a French church were people could worship in French.

2) Franco-American women had little authority in their lives and had decision making ability only in as far as it concerned the children. In most families the father was the firm head of the household and controlled everything in it making all the "important" decisions. In the area of finance, women had little say over what little money there was. The men earned the living and the women took care of the house and children. Franco-American women were excellent managers with very little material goods. They found ways to feed multitudes of people with nothing and still provided harmony in the home.

3) Franco-American families often moved to find work. The usual pattern was for the man to go ahead and set up housekeeping, often with relatives, and then sent for the family. For

the most part, they stayed in place with their extended families.

4) Franco-American women were surrounded by their extended families which proved to be their greatest help. For these women life revolved around the Church. Most celebrations, deaths, social occasions, even dating took place at the local church.

As Franco-American women aged, they became respected for their ability to survive and were looked up to for their wisdom and faith. Their children, for the most part, took care of them in their old age. Today many live in elderly housing made available by state assistance. They worry about what will happen to them when they are no longer able to care for themselves. Nursing home care is very expensive and becoming more restrictive. Their children work outside the home and aren't able to care for them at home. They have very limited funds to provide for emergency situations. Their lives still depend on their faith in God. For many, they feel their life of usefulness is over and they wait to die. For others who have been able to benefit from a higher standard of living, they have found a freedom from hard work and are enjoying their last years watching their grandchildren and great-grandchildren grow up.

In looking at the data, we can see similarities in these two groups of Franco-American women. The French language was very important to both groups of Franco-American women. Neither group of women had decision making abilities where their lives were concerned. Both have a history of moving with a sense of rootedness - the Motherhouse for the sisters and family of origin for the wives/mothers. Both groups of women had a loss of identity as the nuns took saints names and the women who married took their husbands name. Their philosophy of life was and remains the same, "God will provide."

The differences show up mainly in the socio/economic structure. The nuns were held in high esteem, educated, with work positions of prestige. Financially the nuns were provided for with complete access to medical and dental care, all of which was beyond the reach for the wives/mothers.

Each group can learn something from the other. For religious communities to survive with fewer women entering convents, outreach to families will be critical. More involvement and communication with the outside world would bring in needed financial resources. The sisters physical and spiritual needs are met very well but psychological needs remain behind closed doors. More meaningful stimulation could be looked at as this group of aging women have lives of experience to share.

For the community women, "Women's ability to sustain community living in advanced old age would be enhanced by the greater availability of quality home care help." (Barer, 64) A return to the old family values of respect and care of the elderly by young parents would do a lot to assure their own care in old age. Promoting images of productive, useful elderly people would help to bring the generations closer together, to work, play, and pray. Including older people on church boards and civic committees; inviting them into the classroom to share life experiences; as volunteers in hospitals and ecology projects; as coaches for young mothers; etc.

For the most part, many of the needs of the elderly are more social than medical. The elderly generally experience lingering disability rather than disease but the system still treats care of the elderly through traditional means - doctors and hospitals. The three major sectors of social protection are Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid and private insurance. There are possible problems facing each system of reimbursement which could be helped by working together.

In conclusion, I believe that culture plays a major role in aging. The lives we were given have much to do with the choices we have. To be born a Franco-American, Catholic, working class, straight woman offered me the same two options as most Franco-American girls - marriage or convent. I considered a life in the convent very seriously, but could not leave my family to do so. I know today that I made the right decision to marry but accepted many of the same limitations as my mother, grandmother and great-grandmother before me. The major change has come in my aging. As a middle-aged woman I have found the freedom to be me. My husband and I have been fortunate enough to have work situations where we moved up in the economic scale and are better able to provide for our retirement, but as with the other women, I lost my language, took my husband's name, and still place my faith in God for the future.

Sources:

Ten Franco-American elderly nuns (Community asked for anonymity)

Barer, Barbara M., Men and Women Aging Differently. . Annual Editions, Aging, Eleventh Edition, Harold Cox. Dushkin Publishing Group/Brown & Benchmark Publishers, Guilford, CT. 1997

Lao, Ponloeu, Aging in My Culture. Fierce with Reality, Margaret Cruikshank. North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc., St. Cloud, MN. 1995

Leonard, Fran, and Loeb, Laura. The Future of Older Women in America. Annual Editions, Aging, Eleventh Edition, Harold Cox. Dushkin Publishing Group/Brown & Benchmark Publishers, Guilford, CT. 1997

Meigs, Mary. Memory Is As Uncertain as Grace. North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc., St. Cloud, MN. 1995

Meyer, Jack. Can We Afford Old Age. . . Annual Editions, Aging, Eleventh Edition, Harold Cox. Dushkin Publishing Group/Brown & Benchmark Publishers, Guilford, CT. 1997

Sokolovsky, Jay. Images of Aging: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Generations Spring/Summer 1993

Taeuber, Cynthia M. Women in Our Aging Society. . . Annual Editions, Aging, Eleventh Edition, Harold Cox. Dushkin Publishing Group/Brown & Benchmark Publishers, Guilford, CT. 1997

Ugbaja, Franklin. Aging in Two Cultures. Fierce with Reality. Margaret Cruikshank. North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc., St. Cloud, MN. 1995

All Contents are Copyright©Lanette Landry Petrie, 1998

Daring Feat Is Recalled

By Dick Shaw, Bangor Daily News Staff

Brewer Girl's Daring Feat Is Recalled


Bangor Daily News, Bangor, Maine--circa 1970s

The petite 17-year-old blond from South Brewer didn't look the daredevil type,
but one day in 1900 she astounded a crowd at the Eastern Fine Paper corp. in what
the Bangor Daily News called a "daring feat of Brewer beauty."


She was Annie Polyot [Pouliotte], a French girl from Pennsylvania, and she
surprised just about everyone in August 1900 by taking a dare.  A five-dollar
bill was offered to anyone who could muster up the bravoure to scale a
126-foot-high iron smokestack at Eastern's plant in South Brewer.  Only on man,
and no woman or girl, had ever done that.


"On Friday afternoon," the NEWS reported, "in company with some girl friends, she
went to the mill and practiced a little at climbing the ladder.  It seemed easy
to her, and she declared that in the evening, when there would be fewer men
around, she would to the top."


News go around, however, and when Annie later came tripping down between the wood
piles, dressed in a short bicycle skirt, she was surprised to see a crowd of 100
men and a few women and girls clustered around the chimney.


"Without any ceremony or timidity," the NEWS stated, "she grasped the slander
ladder and started for the top of the lofty stack, while the crowd stared in
wonder and admiration."


"Without looking back she gained the top, seated herself on the cap of the
chimney and swung her legs to and from as tough she were sitting in a hammock. 
The crowd gaped and wondered if she would fall, and the men cheered loudly.


"As she landed lightly on terra firma, she smiled saucily and held out her hand
for the five dollars."

Edward Blackman Jr. of Bangor, a son of Annie Polyot, recalled that his mother
married shortly after the incident.  "She used to go around as a midwife with
doctors," Blackman said.  He also remembered that Annie could play 20 to 25 bingo
cards at a time, while he had his hands full with only five.

Annie [Polyot] Blackman died in 1945 and the iron smokestack in South Brewer was
demolished many years ago.

¡Bienvendios!

By Bridget T. Robbins, Guilford

¡Bienvendios! Al instituto de mujeres franco-americanas. ¿Porqué el español? Porque el intercambio de las culturas se hace el movimiento contemporaneo del feminismo más fuerte. Necesitamos establicir un entendimiento entre las culturas; la religion, el idioma extranjero y la tradición de los franco-americanos tiene muchas semejanzas a la cultura hispánica. Lo que nos reunimos, el catolicismo, quizá pueda servir como un puente entre las mujeres latinas y franco-americanas. ¿Hay otra manera mejor para celebrar tu propia cultura que explorar y descubrir otra?

All Contents are Copyright©Bridget T. Robbins, 1998

ONE OF MAMAN'S TEACHING ADVENTURES

By Amy Bouchard Morin, Old Town



	Maman was a lay teacher at St. Joseph s School in Old Town from 1956
to 1969.  Most of those years she taught kindergarten, and she had some
funny adventures.
	The other day she was reminiscing and told about the year that she
washed the walls and floor of the restroom every noon.  The
kindergarten room was made especially to teach  little children.   It
was large, had a whole wall of windows that went from about three feet
above the floor right to the ceiling, and its own little restroom with
a toilet just the right height and a vanity just outside the restroom
door which was also the perfect height for little five-year-old
children to wash their hands.
	One year she had a little boy in the morning session who would go into
the restroom, while she was busy helping the others get ready to go
home, and pee on the walls and floor.  He was pretty sneaky and try as
she would she couldn't catch him.  Now, every noon after the children
went home maman would check the room over to see if any mittens,
papers, etc. were left behind, set the desks in order, and check the
restroom to prepare her classroom for the afternoon session.  And every
noon she was finding the restroom with its decoration that this little
boy was leaving her.  The school janitor went home for lunch, so Maman
had to clean up the mess every day.
	Quite a few of the nuns took a shortcut through Mamans room after
lunch to get back to their classrooms.  One day Mother Superior came
back from lunch and there was Maman  on her hands and knees washing the
floor (she had finished the walls) and she could hear Maman sputtering.
 She asked her what she was doing.  Maman told her what was going on
and said,  I wish I was a surgeon.  I m telling you I would fix that
stinker so he had to SIT DOWN for the rest of his life!   
	Well, this extra duty wore pretty thin after awhile, so Maman decided
to keep everyone after school until whoever was doing this  dirty deed 
confessed.  She told the children what was going on and that all the
children would have sit at their desks until the person who was doing
this confessed.  Well, they sat for quite awhile, and finally one
little girl (who came from French Island) started crying and went up to
her and confessed.  I guess she really wanted to go home!  At that
point Maman had to let them go, because she had said when someone
confessed they could go home.    She came home that night laughing so
hard she was almost in tears and told us how her plan had backfired. 
To this day, Maman tells the story and laughs, but she still doesn't
know who was peeing on the walls and floor of the restroom.    

Some Jewels of Maine: Jewish Maine Pioneers

A Review By Rhea J. Côté Robbins, Brewer



Some Jewels of Maine: Jewish Maine Pioneers, by Celia C. Risen, Dorrance
Publishing Co., Inc., 643 Smithfield St., Pittsburgh, PA., 15222, Telephone:
800-788-7654, ISBN#0-8059-4206-8, 178 pp., $14.00/$3.50 S/H.



	Some Jewels of Maine: Jewish Maine Pioneers is Celia Risen's second
book. Her first book, published in 1988, is entitled Yankee Fiddler:
A Man Called Suss.  Both books are about the Jewish families who came
to settle in Maine.  With her recent book, Some Jewels of Maine,
Risen focuses in depth on the entire state of Maine and several of the immigrants
and their families who came to settle here during the late 1800s, early
1900s and carries the story to modern times.  The immigrants came from Russia
and Eastern Europe to escape the pogroms, persecution and conscription into
the Czar's army.  

	Risen, now retired from teaching, began her inquiry into the Jewish pioneers
who came to Maine after conducting interviews with them and their descendants
for the English as a Second Language (ESL) courses she was teaching.  The
stories sparked her interest so she decided to pursue the families' histories.

	Some Jewels of Maine captures the lives of the Jewish pioneers and
their struggles of living through the hardship of language, culture, religious
barriers in a new, foreign land.  What they left behind in the old country
were even greater hardships.  What they became in the new land was a distinct
and unique people who prospered, for the most part, despite the barriers,
and because of the barriers.  The push to succeed and the hard working diligence
of the Jewish people who came to settle in the state are a part of many
Maine communities local legend and lore.  From the beginning of their arrival,
even without knowledge of English or without much capital, these Russian
and Eastern European immigrants touched the lives of the people in the state.
 

	"I wanted to show the ESL students what others were able to accomplish
even though they came with no money, no skills and no knowledge of English,"
Risen states.  What began as a way to illustrate to her ESL students the
influence that these immigrants played, despite the barriers of language,
etc., in the formation of the communities they settled in, Risen's book
speaks to many of us about the valuable contribution these immigrants made
to their culture and the economy of the state.

	Interestingly, for me, the interweaving of other cultures with the Jewish
immigrants is adeptly illustrated.  I can add my own personal testimony,
coming from the French Canadian [Franco-American] culture, about the interactions
with many of these Jewish immigrants, or their descendants, which was a
part of my upbringing.  I was told, and it was held up as an example, of
the way in which the Jewish people often aided their own to succeed in the
world of commerce.  The local paper would advertise the "Founder's
Day Sale" of the local Jewish clothier.  A peddler's wagon was featured
in the ad because that was how the business had started.  My mother worked
for two such clothiers, hired because of her bilingual skills, as many others
were also hired to work in the stores because of their bilingual abilities,
which represents a prominent feature of the way these Jewish pioneers would
learn to do business-in the language of their customers.  Later on, as a
family, we raised chickens for another Jewish business enterprise.  My aunt
would tell me stories of the Jewish peddler in No. Maine and what his interaction
with the French community there was like. In reading Risen's book, my own
life's history was revealed to me through the stories of the many Jewish
families that effected the communities to which they came to work and live.
 

	The Jewish pioneers came to Maine because the climate and landscape resembled
the ones they had left behind.  Immigrant followed immigrant as well.  The
economy in Maine was one which allowed for immigrants to learn a trade,
peddle, apprentice, or become an independent worker.  Many who started out
as peddlers, prospered to become merchants, factory owners, chicken plant
processors, distributors of goods and services as well as community leaders.
 Risen writes a catalog of accomplishments and achievements for the women
and men whose families immigrated to Maine.  Because education was a goal
for all, both women and men, through the hard working efforts of others
before them, were able to attain college education in the second and third
generations to become doctors, lawyers, professors and entered other professions
as well.  

	Religion played an important role in their lives.  Maintaining kosher homes
and Jewish religious observances were a part of their integration in the
community.  Synagogues were begun when there were enough Jewish families
in that town to support it.  When faced with anti-Semitism, they responded
by creating fraternities, support networks, lending agencies and other organizations
to counteract the prejudice they faced.  Some communities were more accepting
than others.  Risen often points out that the Jews and the French often
faced the same core of prejudice-that which was directed toward cultures
other than "Yankee."  

	Risen writes in a style of "the pot of living" which is open
ended and stirs in details through a cultural language that reflects Jewishness.
 She expounds on proverb, humor, philosophies of Jewish tradition, candidness
of intercultural animosities, shochets, schonorrers, economics
defined by histories, poverty, struggles in upward mobility, successes and
failures of the families which read as a who's who of many Maine communities.
 Many will recognize family names such as Sterns, Bernstein, Povich, Berliawsky,
Lown, Wolman, Lipman, Goldsmith, Cohen, Cutler, Etscovitz, Levine and many
more whose enterprise touched the lives of thousands through the years.
 Each chapter interviews one family which leads to the next chapter like
a string of pearls of influence.  Each chapter also focuses on an issue
or cause or concern close to the individuals featured.  The language and
ritual of Jewish living is explained historically for the dislocated immigrants
who took up the hard work of recreating the support networks necessary to
define a distinct people.  In modern terms, taking into consideration the
renewed interest in global economics, this book reveals the multicultural
and international landscape which has is a legacy of the state.  The historic
proof of the tradition and ability to do business in the language of one's
customers as well as a multicultural focus informing the communities in
which these immigrants settled, is a strength to be drawn from in today's
market place.  

	Risen began her connection to Maine in 1955 when she and her husband sent
their children to the camps developed in the state for Jewish children,
and later they began summering here on a tree farm in central Maine every
year from June till September.  Her intimate knowledge of the Jewish communities
captures the flavors of each and reflects it back to the reader in detail
and accuracy.  Her book, Some Jewels of Maine: Jewish Maine Pioneers
is an important book to add to the libraries, classrooms, curriculums and
pleasure reading lists because of the inevitability of how these pioneers
have touched our lives.  As a reading public, we need to know their stories.
 As a multicultural, international historic community, we are enriched by
our collective history told in this book.        	 



Rhea J. Côté lives in Brewer with her family and is the author of Wednesday's
Child, which won the 1997 Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance Chapbook
Award.	

All Contents are Copyright©Rhea J. Côté, 1998

THE BOAT RIDE

By Trudy Chambers Price, Brunswick



It is early and the lake is smooth.

There are ten of us, so we make two trips.

My brother and I trade parents with our cousins

for the ride across in Grandfather's old boat,

the only way to get to his camp.



The apples are ripe; we fill burlap bags full.

We fish from the wharf and the boys

catch yellow perch.  We girls are envious.

We picnic on the shore

 			and linger.



The air cools and the wind comes up.

Afternoon sky darkens too early.

The men decide to make just one trip back.

The boat sits low in the water.  Grandfather,

with his hand on the lever of the purring,

5-horse Johnson, looks steadily ahead.

Uncle Romie sits on the bow, the only place

he can with his stiff leg.  There are no lifejackets.

My father and brother are the only swimmers.



The waves grow higher, splashing over the sides

of the boat into our faces.  Water pitches over the bow.

I am afraid Uncle Romie will fall in.

No one speaks except Grandmother, who quietly tells

us kids to sit very still and watch the other shore.

My hand is glued to her warm knee.

My new sneakers are full of water.

I don't look at my mother, I already know her fear.

She and Grandmother bail rhythmically with worm cans.



Grandfather tells my father to ease the bags of apples

overboard.  They bob wildly in the storm.

Then he reaches under his seat with his free hand

and clutches the handle of his toolbox.

Still looking straight ahead,

he balances it on the side of the boat, blinks slowly,

then drops it into the water.



The rest of the way is a blur of wet and wind and dark

mixed with a belief that Grandfather knows the way and will hold

the little outboard steady against the giant waves.

Much later we finally arrive at the sheltered cove.

We secure the boat to the wharf and drive home in silence.



12-11-93

All Contents are Copyright©Trudy Chambers Price, 1998

Poems By Joyce Fairbrother

Dandelions

Weeds with attitude,

Dandelions get in your face,

roar, refuse to go meekly

like lambs quarters or milkweed.

Virulent as burdock,

rampant as bamboo,

edgy and green,

they trumpet their too loud,

crass yellow ego explosions.

Dandelions exclaim,

colonizing a lawn

like vegetative evangelicals,

their fervor and bravado 

punctuated by white

wild strawberry blossoms.

crouching obsequiously 

at their feet.





Zoe-Genevieve




Tired,

Zoe cuddles up to me

and rests her head

along my breast.

Linking her arm

through my elbow,

she sucks her thumb

and talks to me

in angel mumbles

of inarticulate love.

Looking into my eyes,

she smiles silent trust.

Eyes closing,

she melts me

like chocolate clutched

in her small hand.



October 18, 1997

By Lucille Gosselin, Orrington

	As a teenager, I strongly admired my great-grandmother, Elise Landry Bosse,
for  the true pioneer she was. 'Grandmaman' was born at St. Andre de Kamouraska,
Que., on  April 30, 1867.  On September 19, 1886, she married Louis Bosse
from St. Arsene de  Temiscouata, Que.  They arrived in Lewiston, Me. about
two years later and were the first  to develop 'le petit Canada'.  Louis
built several large apartment buildings on River and  Oxford streets in
order to generate income and eventually help lodge his large family; as
 they married and established families of their own.  There were 14 children,
11 that  survived infancy.  Six sons and five daughters, most of whom married
and had large  families also.  The exception was my own 'Memere' Amanda,
who was widowed very  young and was left with three children, which included
my Mother.  But, that's another  story.



	It was so intriguing to watch 'Grandmaman's' routine.  Sometime, I would
 visit after school, and find her on her hands and knees, with a big brush
and pail of water,  scrubbing her kitchen floor.  She made the  lye soap
with grease leftovers, lye and  ammonia.  Everything was immaculate in her
house, a typical French Canadian characteristic.  Daughters were taught
at an early age to maintain a home by following their  mother and helping
her with the daily routine.  Pride in personal appearance was also very
important and each night of her life, 'Grandmaman' curled her hair by rolling
it on pieces  of toilet paper.  The next morning, part of her grooming routine
included brushing those  tight curls into a stylish hairdo.  Her day started
at dawn and lasted into the evening hours,  with never a lost minute; for
inactivity was the 'le temps du diable'. 



	Meals were substantial and nourishing, with fresh produce in season;  
canned and preserved foods in the Winter.   She did her own gardening, canning
and  preserves, as well as baking daily the breads, pies, cakes, cookies
that we all enjoyed  whenever we visited. 



	The washing of clothes was a day's rigorous affair.  First a tub had to
be filled with  hot water, soap and bleach;  in which the clothes were scrubbed
on the washboard.  Once  they were wrung out, clothes went into another
tub filled with bluing water.  Once these  were wrung out, many had to go
to a third tub for starching.  Finally all were hung to dry  on the large
porch, in all kinds of weather.  Whenever the clothes froze before drying,
they would be taken down and draped over any available surface, to finish
drying.  It was the washing of the curtains that fascinated me the most.
 After the starching  process, she  would stretch them on frames placed
around the huge kitchen, in order for  them to dry  and hang properly. 
Is it any wonder that she was so enthusiastic when she got her  first  wringer
washing machine?



	Next came the day for ironing and mending.  Ironing before electricity
was  a difficult,  slow process.  The iron consisted of two parts; a handle
that could hook onto  the flat part which was left on a hot stove to heat
up. When hot, it was hooked to the  handle part and then used  to iron.
 It cooled quickly however, so the process had to be  repeated with several
iron flats on the stovetop.  Lucky the woman who had many iron  flats, but
it was a process that still required lots of time and patience.  Each starched
item  of clothing had been sprinkled and rolled in a towel and stuck in
the icebox in order to  keep damp.  Everything got ironed , from underwear
to sheets, pillowcases, towels and all  the clothes the large family wore.
 Mending of clothes was a given.  'Waste not, want not'  was not only a
saying...it was a practice.  'A stitch in time saves nine' was also religiously
 adhered to.  

 

	There was always plenty of baking in the large ovens of the woodstove.
 I saw her  bake six to eight breads first thing in the morning, as if it
was the easiest thing to do.  I  guess when it is a daily routine, it does
become effortless.  Pies were not only for desserts,  but also meals: Chicken,
turkey,. salmon, and 'Tourtiere's' were staples.  Cookies and  cakes were
also always available as well as fruit pies, cobblers, etc.  Fresh eggs,
milk, and  produce were delivered to the door by farmers, and during the
Summer months, many  would walk the streets with their carts shouting their
specials.  Housewives would  come  out to buy everything from fresh produce
to rags and secondhand wares, as well as to take  time to socialize.  Feeding
three substantial meals daily to the family took many hours of    labor.
 In these days of  'take out meals' I'm sure I must be an oddity because
I still pre- pare some of her favorite recipes, handed down in my family.
 'Tourtieres', 'crepes',  'cretons', 'tarte au salmon' 'amarinages' etc.
 Many of her recipes were folk medicines we  still use today, because they
work.  For instance, blow smoke into the ear for an earache,  or into the
eye to break a sty.  Mix water, vinegar and honey as a gargle for sore throat.
  Mix baking soda, and salt for toothpaste.  One recipe for salted herbs
is not only terrific to  add to soups, stews and casseroles, but also is
a medicine that heals a bad sprain quickly.   To stop a coughing spell;
swallow a tablespoons of molasses mixed with lots of pepper.  

 

	Of course a few of  her methods I've voluntarily chosen to discard...although
they sure  worked.  But no way will I wear a clove of garlic around my neck
to avoid getting a cold,  or take castor oil and cod liver oil for a monthly
tonic.



	Another chore for the housewife was that of knitting  the family's mittens,
scarves,  sweaters and even stockings which were knit with 5 needles.  For
this, 'Grandmaman' had  to dye and spool the yarn.  She made the thread
on her 'rouet', a small spinning wheel set  in the corner of her workroom.
 Also placed in that room was a large weaving loom, on  which she weaved
'catalognes',  rugs and many useful items of clothing. 



	Cleaning the house was also a woman's duty. Weekly the house was swept,
dusted and scrubbed.  Fall and Spring cleaning were a must in a well run
Franco-American  household.   Ceilings, walls and floors were scrubbed.
 Windows were washed inside- out, as well as the screens.  Closets and drawers
were re-organized.  Furniture was  polished; curtains washed and starched;
 rugs beaten and upholstered furniture was swept  clean of dust.  Each year,
one or two rooms were designated for new paint and curtains. 

 

	Interspersed among all this work and activity, was 'Grandmaman's' involvement
as an  active member of her church, 'l'Eglise Ste. Marie'.  She belonged
to the ' Dames de Ste.Anne; Dames de Charite; Dames de l'Union St. Joseph
et de l 'Union St. Jean Baptiste  de l'Amerique'.   Sundays were days set
aside for God family and rest.  Mass  was followed by visiting other families,
or enjoying company for a meal.  Participating in a  'soiree' where  lots
of music and singing,  and/or card playing such as Whist, was the  norm.
 Special holidays had very significant rituals.  Christmas always started
with  midnight mass, followed by a 'reveillons',  which is a buffet served
at the patriarch's  home, after which the gifts are given, songs are sung
and laughter abounds after each story  told.   The stockings with a very
precious, at that time, orange was placed in the toe, and were given to
the excited children.  New Year's celebration started also with attendance
at  mass, after which a large meal was serveas Whist, was the  norm.  Special
holidays had very significant rituals.  Christmas always started with  midnight
mass, followed by a 'reveillons',  which is a buffet served at the patriarch's
 home, after which the gifts are given, songs are sung and laughter abounds
after each story  told.   The stockings with a very precious, at that time,
orange was placed in the toe, and were given to the excited children.  New
Year's celebration started also with attendance at  mass, after which a
large meal was served and everyone wished each other health, happiness and
good fortune for the year.  Then 'Granpapa' Bosse, as the patriarch of the
family, would bless each one.  Easter mass was followed by a large ham dinner
and an egg hunt, with a chocolate egg for each child.  Independence Day
celebrations consisted of parades and picnics.  My favorite was the Labor
Day ritual.  Because we had no vehicle of transportation, it was so exciting
to travel in Uncle Pierre's horse and wagon, singing our French songs all
the way to Auburn "En avant la Cantiniere," "Au clair de
la lune," "Au Canada," "Les boutons d'cullotte,"
"Comme qu'il y a des saintes au Canada" and more.  To me the following
cookout of fresh corn and garden produce was anti-climatic.



	The Bosse's celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1936.  'Grandmaman'
was a widow at 76 as well as blind, when I arrived on the scene.  Se remained
very active and independent, living in her own apartment with two grown
sons.  At 88, a Dr. Tchao arrived in Lewiston, advocating a new surgery
for cataracts.  'Grandmaman' was his first patient.  Because of her courage
and fait in God, to submit to this revolutionary surgery and defying the
rumors that this doctor was "an oriental quack," she regained
her sight.  I remember her fascination with Television, once she could see
again.  She thanked God daily for the miracles she was experiencing, especially
the "moving pictures that talked."  She lived through so many
changes:  the first car, the icebox, electricity and all the appliance and
conveniences that brought.  The radio, telephone, telegraph, airplanes,
TV and even witnessed Sputnik.  She learned some English by watching TV,
and always was interested in everything.  Her mind remained sharp until
her death.



	When I was 21, as an engagement gift, 'Grandmaman' presented me with a
'catalogne' from her loom, which I still use today.  She did this for every
grandchild until she was into her 80s.



	She was typical of the great demands placed on a Franco-American woman
in the 20th and 21st centuries.  Their lives were dedicated in the service
to the family, the home and the church.  They provided stability, love and
happiness that developed a good foundation for the children, who learned
from their example to be hard-working, honest, loving, caring and God-centered
individuals.  It was understood that the woman was the "heart of the
family" and the man was the "head of the family."  No matter
how much we deny and disagree with this formula, we must admit it did give
the nation solid law abiding citizens with an independent work ethic that
built this nation to greatness.  It certainly is too extreme for today's
woman and society, but I believe with modifications, and women's as well
as men's willingness to focus themselves on the well being of their family,
we could create wonders in our modern world.  To much emphasis on the 'me'
can destroy the 'we' of family.



	'Grandmaman' Bosse died at 91 years of age.  She left eight children four
sisters and a brother, 35 grandchildren and 60 great-grandchildren.  The
legacy she left was one of love, self-denial, service, hard work, cleanliness
and pride in one's personal appearance and surrounding, no matter what age
you are.  her progeny, through her example, have learned her lessons very
well.  "Merci chere Grandmaman."    

All Contents are Copyright©Lucille Gosselin, 1998

Chapter 45

By Rhea J. Côté Robbins, Brewer

 Un mot au Sage!  

Le secret du succès dans les affaires repose dans le maintien d'une
bonne réputation d'honnêteté.  Tous ceux qui achètent
de nous des Pardessus d'hiver sont prêts à nous rendre ce témoignage...Si
vous avez conscience de votre intérêt vous n'acheterez pas
un Pardessus ailleurs sans venir voir les bons marchés que nous offrons.

-L'Indépendant, 4ième année, No. 2 Foi, loyauté,
progrès, Fall River, Mass, 13 janvier, 1888

  
D'une bonne réputation...Si vous avez conscience de votre intérêt



 	At least I think he understands.  When we arrive at the cemetery, I notice
the statue of Mary is headless.  No head in sight.  She has been repaired
often.  My brother had given her feet a bath of Portland cement when she
became footless-broken off at the feet.  Mary dissolved in a block of cement.
 Sure to sink if thrown into the water.  I had epoxy glued her head back
on one time when I discovered it was loose.  Now, we find her headless.
 The Blessed Headless Virgin.  The Silenced Woman.  I think to myself, my
father rages still.  Still, he has the power to blast off tree branches
and now, the heads of virgins.  That reminds me of the restaurant-The Silent
Woman.  A headless woman standing there with a tray of food in the newspaper
ad, circa 1970, which read:  



A Silent Woman-how can that be?

Patient traveler do not scoff;

Drawn from the very life is she

and mute, because her head is off!

	I remember the headless woman holding a serving tray on a carved sign in
front of the restaurant on the major thoroughfare to the Belgrade Lakes
region.  She was there just off the highway exit. 

	I'm in the cemetery staring at a headless virgin-one who also served. 
I get afraid.  I think maybe he's pissed because of the balloons.  I'm defiant
of my dead father.  The Silenced Man.  I tie the balloons to the bush anyway.
 We load the headless Mary, worn out by the weather, into the trunk of the
car.  It takes two of us to carry her, lift her into the trunk and slide
her in.  We take the headless virgin shopping with us to Portland.  I put
her in the wood pile when I get home.  I remember taboos about how to burn
flags when they are worn out, but what to do with religious, blessed by
a priest, artifacts?  What do you do with the body?

	As women, of our own kind, sometimes we hold each other down so that our
men, our own kind, can rape us.  Character rape.  A culture's inmates at
war with each other.  Across the gender lines battle lines are drawn.  The
alcoholic will not inspire any grass to grow over his tomb.  Husband of
my mother-in-law.  She makes comment that it is all the alcohol rising to
the top, killing off the grass.  He was a perpetrator.  Against himself
and the women in his family.  Secret told.  What shame lies at the bottom
of graves that we cannot tell them still.  Was I ever a victim of silencing?
 First, when he beat my maman, when I was eight, I went to get the neighbors;
they told me never to do that again, the family did.  Don't ever go get
the neighbors again.  Second, he beat my maman again; I went to get the
relatives, who were not the neighbors, but lived close by.  Don't ever bring
shame onto us like that again the family told me.  Don't ever go get anyone
again.  Third, he was beating my maman in bed.  I sent my pregnant eighteen
year old sister-in-law down to break up the fight.  She was staying in the
house with us.  She was hard to convince to take a walk...just take a walk
downstairs,  I pleaded with her...and he'll stop.  He'll hear you walking
around and he will stop hitting her.  Every second counted.  Big, fattened
for the delivery date, she lumbered downstairs.  I heard my maman lie. 
No, I'm OK.  We were only talking.  Fourth, I was sixteen and running from
the crazed man.  He is driving a car and looking for maman and me walking
on the street in our neighborhood.  He had taken the distributor cap off
the engine one more time to keep us prisoners to his anger.  I had planned
an escape one more time.  But he came after us.  In front of all my friends
sitting on a porch, I decide to cross the road going in their direction
for cover and safety, when he sees me, he screeches on the brakes.  My maman
yells, "Watch out!" to me.  Embarrassing me in front of my friends.
 He is dead drunk.  I turn to her. "QUIET!"  "I don't want
my friends to know."  I am desperate to get off the streets.  We go
home by another route again.  Only to find the house trashed.  He had gone
berserk and emptied all the trash cans all over the house.  I dial the phone
and call the police.  They arrive.  One of the cops who arrive is the beat
cop.  The one we talked to when I hung out as a teenager at the fire station
up the street.  All the public services were localized in the neighborhoods.
 Beat cops kept time with the kids in the neighborhood.  He recognized me
and he knew me.  He wanted my maman to leave.  To take me out of there for
my own good.  For the rest of my life.  They pick up the reddish stained
paper towels, the ones dad made at the mill when he wasn't drinking, and
smelled it.  "Gasoline," they say.  I smell it and tell them the
truth: "Lysol."  He drives in.  With his dog.  They see him driving
drunk.  They ask him for his keys.  He tells them the dog was driving and
he is serious.  "What do you want us to do?" they ask my maman
and me.  "Get the keys so we can take the car," I whisper to maman.
 "We want the keys," she boldly says.  "Keep him here,"
I tell my friend the cop.  We need to get away from him.  Once more, we
are not killed.  We drive off to normalcy somewhere.  Try to act with wholeness
in a shattered world.  We are shell-shocked in our existences.  Cracked
and bleeding under the surface.  We wander and drive around all night. 
I practice my night driving on my permit.  She sleeps in the back seat.
 "Go home," she tells me.  "Go home."  It isn't four
A. M.  He hasn't fried his hot dogs and onions yet.  I will practice driving
some more.  I go home at five A.M.  We walk in.  The trash is gone.  Picked
up.  The next day, he has bought me a pair of ugly, dangling earrings and
a card of sorrow.  To make up.  I hate presents of restitution.

	I am seeking the truth like confession told in reverse.  The Silent Woman
no more.  Was I ever silent?  What of the shame visited on a people, secrets
at the bottom of graves, told after the long-dead have died?  To whose benefit?
 How many years of drunkenness brought on by anger at the lack of education,
the torture of an invalidated existence, clinical depression, lost directions
of how to be a man, culture run amuck, misogyny, the harrowing of the mill?
 Hollingsworth and Whitney Pulp Mills.  Scott Paper Company.

Employee Number 307

Hired:  February 10, 1935

Retired: (early) August 1, 1973

Seniority date: April 1, 1948

Maintenance Permanent Class 'AA' piper: December 1, 1958

Pipe Shop Permanent Class 'AAA' piper, promotion: May 30, 1960.

	I counted seventeen medical Leaves of Absence.  One when he was gassed
by chlorine.  Another electrocuted by 420 volt electricity.  The man who
visited the women of the men who were hurt at the mill drove into the yard
and my maman flew out of the house.  He wasn't out of his car yet.  She
met him in the driveway, apron hem wrapped in her hands.  The sixth-grade
educated man while on staging had laid hold of a pipe through which 420
voltage passed.  He fainted.  His partner climbed the ladder and they brought
him down, into the ambulance, and to the hospital where he passed blood
in his urine.  After the electric shock treatments, he'd received for depression,
I thought, a little more of his memory will be gone.  He told us he let
himself pass out or else he knew the last thing he ever did was that he'd
be the ground of that voltage running through his body-dead.  A piper, caught
between the rail of the staging and the pipe conducting electricity.  He
survived.  The mill sighed.  They don't like to have accidents reported
on their records.  Safety First!  Reads the board as the workers walk in
each day.  A record of injuries is kept.  In his worker file I found no
evidence of the danger of his job.  No reporting of the gassing.  Or of
the electrocution.  Clean.  File.  Dates.  Cold hard non-committal dates.
 More silence.  I am the bearer of the tales.  

	Previous employer: Wallace Simpson, Dairy Farm, Reason for leaving: written
in my maman's handwriting, Betterment.

Changed mill seniority: February 10, 1935.

Jobs:

Snow Shoveler: January 2, 1935, hired

General: May 15, 1935, transferred

Yard: November 9, 1942, transferred

Truck Driver: April 23, 1945

C1B Pipers Helper: June 18, 1945

Yard Man: December 17, 1945

Truck Driver:  March 10, 1946

Yard Man: November 13, 1946, displaced by Vets

C1'B' Pipers Helper: May 25, 1947

C1'A' Pipers Helper: June 1, 1947

C1 'D' Piper: April 1, 1948

C1 'C' Piper: December 20, 1948

C1 'D' Piper: February 21, 1949

Name change:  From Raymond G. Côté to Gerald R. Côté,
May 23, 1949

Their tombstone which he ordered after she died, with praying hands that
she loved, depicted, pleasing her in death as he could never bring himself
to in life, reads: Raymond and not Gerald, which he hated.  My brother,
his junior, when he read the tombstone, asked me why Raymond, and not his
real first name Gerald was on the tombstone, and I told him.  "Dad
did that.  He hates Gerald."

	"I don't blame him," my older brother said.  Stuck with re-run
identities all of us.  The oldest a junior.  Mail and phone calls confused.
 The second named for the then fresh-dead pépère.  The third,
named in memory of a cousin who choked on corn flakes.  Me, named for the
twin of maman.  The twin who had named her daughter the name of her twin.
 The legacy of multiple identities written on all of us as children and
of the duality of cultures in negotiation for existence.  The fight against
foreign language living happening in English.  French as the sword and shield.
 The apron a signal of fierce pride at home.  Flour fingerprints, greased,
left on the book of life, Better Homes and Garden Cookbook.
 The sustaining graces of home cooked meals from memory.  Tourtière
as ambrosia of the Franco-Americans.

	C1'C' Piper:  June 1, 1949

	C1 'B' Piper: June 1, 1952

	C1 'A' Piper:  October, 27, 1952.

	I read in my father's own handwriting:  "Early retirement.  I will
receive a reduced amount of retirement annuity."  Just so everyone
would know.  Retirement income $66.28 per month.  $26.16 every 3 months,
Hollingsworth and Whitney retirement.  Social Security.  Thirty-eight years
worth of bought and paid for silence.  For all of us.  

JUST DIFFERENT

By Connie Magnan-Albrizio, CT

 CHARLEY MARTEAU'S NEWLY PURCHASED HOME AND HORSE FARM SITUATED DIRECTLY
BEHIND THE INFAMOUS LINEHOUSE WHICH STRADDLED THE CANADIAN / AMERICAN BORDER
DURING THE EARLY 1900'S.


	We finished unloading the last of the household furnishings, and were taking
a cool water break at the well.  This new place of ours straddled the border,
with barn and stables in Herménégilde on Canadian soil, and
with house and garden in Beecher Falls, Vermont on American soil. 

    "1916 and we've moved three times this year," I whispered
to my sister, Marie-Anne. "Every person I know has been in one home
all of their life, so have their folks and grandfolks."  

    Marie-Anne shrugged.

    Our father stood tall and straight, legs apart, feet solidly rooted,
with thumbs hooked onto his suspenders at the waist as he surveyed his new
property.  I could smell the imported Bay Rum when I moved closer to him.
 

Poppa never used alcohol and talcum on his clean shaven face.  He liked
the good stuff. "What's so special about this place, Poppa?" 

    He looked me straight in the eye, and without removing his cigar clenched
between polished teeth, said, "Just different."  He was a horse-trader
who planned to buy horses at auctions and horse shows on both sides of the
line and to pay taxes in both countries so as not to get into trouble with
Customs.  

    This was also my eleventh birthday.  We'd been so busy moving, nobody
but Marie-Anne had remembered.  Before pulling away from our old place,
in the Hereford Mountain Region, with this last load, she had thrust a small
white paper bag filled with candy into my hand. "Everytime I went to
the village store for seed, yardgoods, thread or such for Momma or ma tante
Aurore, I bought a penny's worth.  It took me all year to fill the bag.
Don't show it to the others.  This is just for you." 

     "You're not only my sister, you're my best friend," I said
as I stuck the bag deep into my coverall pocket.

	She beamed with pleasure.  Nobody said nice things to her even though she
was helpful and kind to each of us.  I loved her best. 

   Poppa was almost in a trance admiring our new place, when he suddenly
realized we were standing near him at the well.  He spoke seriously to Marie-Anne
because she was the oldest and to me because I was the only boy in the family,
"You have to learn English fast," he said pointing the chewed
end of his cigar in my direction.  "And you," he said, directing
his cigar end toward Marie-Anne, "learn from him.  Your mother and
aunt keep telling me how smart you are, well prove it." 

	Poppa put the cigar between his teeth, curled his lips around it, drew
in deeply, took it out, then blew three perfect smoke rings before continuing,
"I expect you both to teach us how to speak English and how to write
our names."

	"The children know how to write their names, Poppa."

	A withering look from our father shut Marie-Anne up fast.  We both knew
that he was the only one who couldn't read or write.

	"I need you to learn fast, Armand.  We can't let ourselves be swindled
by the English speakers. When you live and work in a foreign country, you've
got to know the language.  There's no other way." 

	The first Monday in our new place was crazy.  At dawn, my father gypsied
off to a horse auction in Coaticook; my mother busied herself, removing
clean clothes and kitchen goods from the packed flour barrels; fourteen-year-old
Marie-Anne had been yanked out of school in the third grade to help out
on the farm.  Her job at this new place was to take care of the horses and
each of the stalls in the stables; and my job was to take my two younger
sisters along to school.

 	 "I hope they like us," six-year-old Jacqueline said,  as we
walked the dirt road to school. "I'm sticking near you," she said,
slipping her hand into Evangeline's. "Everybody loves you."

	"What about me?  Do I have a wart on my nose or something?" I
teased. The girls giggled, forgetting for a bit to be afraid.

	We arrived before anyone else and I sensed trouble the moment         


I set eyes on our new teacher.  She looked like a skinny crow, with black
shiny hair parted in the middle, pulled tight over her ears and knotted
at the back of her head just below the skull where the head stops and the
neck starts.  She dressed in black from her skinny neck to her wrists and
ankles, with not so much as a collar circling her garment.  She lowered
her head and her glasses slid halfway down her long pointy nose as she peered
over them at us. Jacqueline whimpered, clinging tighter to Evangeline.

	"Stop that foolishness," teacher barked.

	Jacqueline broke out bawling and Evangeline stood straight and proud and
scolded in French, "Don't talk to her like that.  She's just a little
one who's afraid to come to this new school."

	"More Canadians," she snapped.  "Does anyone speak English?"

	"Me.  I do.  I'm Franco-American, Mam'selle, not full Canadian like
my sisters here, because I was born in New Hampshire, USA when Momma was
visiting friends while Poppa was gone to auctions  -- "

	"Make her stop," teacher interrupted, pointing to Jacqueline.
 "Tell her to let go the other one and to stand on her own."

	I did and also warned the girls to take their cues from me. 

	"Why are you here alone without a grownup?" teacher asked. "School
started eight weeks ago."

	I heard, but didn't answer. I couldn't speak well enough to make her understand
that nobody at home spoke English. My eyes locked with hers for an unblinking
moment and I shrugged.  She turned sharply and we followed her up the stairs
in single file.                                                   

      Standing behind her desk, pencil in hand, teacher asked, "How
long have you been here?"

	"One half of an hour," I answered.

	"I mean in this country."

	"We come from the Linehouse on the border..."

	"You mean that dirty saloon?"

	"No!  No! The house in the back, half here, half over the line,"
I said, straddling an imaginary line.  The kids crowding into the room and
pushing into their seats guffawed at my gestures.  I continued to look only
at the teacher and to answer as best I could.

	A reading and writing test put me in the third grade section with the babies.
 I could hardly stand the shame.  Evangeline sat next to me even though
she had not been tested, and Jacqueline was made to sit across the room
totally separated from us.

	When teacher showed an arithmetic problem on the chalk board, I jumped
up with the answer even faster than the bigger kids.  I wanted to show them
all that I was smart. No matter how much she wanted me to, I couldn't explain
how I came up with the right answer, I just did, that's all.  Working alongside
my father these past years had taught me to calculate fast in my head and
that's all I knew about it. My speaking mistakes and bad pronunciation though
tickled the students to side-splitting laughter.  

      At recess it wasn't much better: kids crushed around, locking us inside
a tight circle, holding hands, chanting,

     "Canuck, Canuck come to town, wearing nothing but a frown.

      Canuck, Canuck come to town, dragging nothing but a log.

      Canuck, Canuck come to town, eating nothing but a hog.

      Canuck, Canuck come to town, wearing nothing but a frown."



     "Don't cry!" I commanded my sisters. "Grab my belt and
get ready!" They took hold on each side of my waist. "LET'S GO!"


	We lunged, breaking through the cordon of shrieking kids with me at the
point and my sisters trailing close behind. From the corner of my eye I
caught Evangeline with her free hand, pinching her nose at the taunters.
She always made everything worse. Far enough past the broken circle to be
safe, we stopped and turned to face them. Evangeline pinched her nose again,
did a quick turn, bent over and pointed to her butt.  She ducked behind
me when two kids rushed forward.  I dropped them flat.  No one bothered
us for the rest of the day, but there was a lot of nose pinching, butt pointing
and stuck out tongues passing back and forth between the girls and my sisters.
 

	 Anxious and on edge ready for anything that first week, we were relieved
yet disappointed when nothing much happened. The girls exchanged smiles
instead of ugly faces and began to mix in with a friendly bunch who seemed
intent on making them feel welcome. However pleasant this was, Evangeline
discovered a pair of sisters who were the best dressed in class, and who
also lived in the biggest farmhouse she had ever seen, just a half mile
southeast of us. These were the friendships she wanted to cultivate, supposing
in her dream world that we were destined to become rich and famous horse
traders.

	One night after supper, I heard Jacqueline complain to Evangeline,"They
don't look at us even when we walk home right behind them."

	"Give it more time," Evangeline answered in the sing song voice
I hated whenever she spoke to Jacqueline. "When they learn how precious
you are, they'll snatch you from us for themselves."

	"No they won't.  You're just saying that."

	"Dry your tears, sweet child, and watch me draw my numbers for homework.
I know what. Ask Marie-Anne to draw your picture, she's so good at that,"
Evangeline cooed.

	"Stop with the stories," I scolded when the little one was out
of earshot.  "Teach her to take care of herself, not to play make-believe.
 She'll get hurt and it'll be your fault," I said, fixing my twelve-year-old
sister with a hard eyelock.

	"You're so mean," Evangeline said. "Get away from me."

	That night in our attic bedroom I heard them whispering.  Evangeline had
pulled Jacqueline's straw mattress across the floor, close up to her own,
thinking I couldn't hear because mine was on the other side of the room
next to the wall. It saddened me to hear them plot out ways to win over
the neighbor girls.  

	Recess was always the worst time.  Two big, tall guys kept watching me
in a funny way.  Sensing trouble, I avoided them as much as possible which
was rather hard to do squeezed into a room with kids ranging from five to
fifteen.  I knew they'd get me.  It was just a matter of time. 

	We got through another full week without anyone getting hurt and the third
had just begun.  I stepped out of the classroom  at recess time and someone
hiding under the porch reached up through the spaces between the stairs
and grabbed my ankle.  I stumbled down the steps with arms flailing, landing
face down in the dirt with a thud.  One of the big guys jumped on me, my
arms jerked up to cover my head and I got pounded on both sides. I felt
a yank at my waist by someone who snatched my pocket watch, ripping the
chain from the suspender button hole.  I sprung a violent hunch, flipping
the kid off me, and scrambled to my feet, grabbing for my watch being dangled
out of reach by the snatcher. Two more guys ganged up and never stopped
punching until I fell to the ground, gagging on the blood pouring down my
throat.  Somebody screamed, "Go home where you belong, you dirty hillbilly
canuck."

	I ran home forgetting about my sisters who were probably on the girl's
side of the schoolhouse, unaware of what was happening.

	"There's no time for this stupid kid stuff," Poppa hollered when
he caught me cleaning myself off at the outside pump.  "Where are the
girls?"

	I shook my head and shrugged.

	"Go back and get them," he yelled without letting me explain.

     	That night after supper he took me behind the stables and said, "This
is only to protect yourself. You are not to pick fights!  Hear?"

Poppa hated brawling.  He figured there were no winners in this kind of
tussle. Brawling, according to him, was a waste of time and energy that
should be put to better use.

    "Surprise is your best technique," my father said as we began
fight training. We sparred every chance possible during the day and into
the evening. He wouldn't let us go back to class until he was satisfied
I could handle myself and was able to keep the girls from harm too.  We
stayed home all that third week while he and I continued my training between
chores.  

	"Evangeline!  Evangeline!" Jacqueline came home screaming that
Saturday afternoon before we went back to class.  The younger girls pulled
Marie-Anne and me into their little huddle. "They let me play in their
yard," she squealed, jumping up and down in the stable where we were
busy helping Marie-Anne shovel out old straw.

	"Didn't I tellya it'd work?" Evangeline screeched, jumping up
and down nearly stomping on steaming fresh droppings. 

	"They asked me what your name was."

	"How do you know that?  You don't talk English," Marie-Anne asked.

	"I can't explain how I knew, I just did and when I said Evangeline,
they nodded and smiled."

	We returned to class on Monday morning, the fourth week since  registering
at the school and I could tell by the looks of them that the big kids were
planning to have more fun with me.  I was ready.  They came for me at recess
again and I hit the closest one with a fast left to the stomach before he
was ready and crossed with a good right to the chin and knocked him cold.
 The other guy jumped at me. I knocked him to the ground and plopped on
top, pinning both his arms with my knees.  With heavy quick punches to the
face, I cut him up pretty good.  I kept banging away at him until somebody
yelled in French, "Stop it! You're gonna kill him."

	I was wild and not ready to stop. "Gimme my watch," I hollered
to the other guy as I continued to punch the one pinned under.

	It landed on the ground near my leg.  I yanked it up and gave the one pinned
under two more for good measure then released him.  Everybody scattered
as I scampered to my feet. I followed the French talking kid to the far
side of the yard.

	It was surprising to find somebody who spoke my language, somebody who
cared enough to be interested in me in this awful place, even if it could
put him in trouble for it.

	"They call me Armand," I said, reaching to shake his hand.

	"Homer."

	"Thanks, Homer."

	"S'nothing," he said and shrugged, sticking his fists down deep
into the side pockets of his knickers.

	"What's the matter with that bunch anyway?"

	"Stop playing the wiseguy," he told me in French. "That
jumping up with the answers before the big kids, for chrissake, what doya
expect?  They're gonna like you for that?"

	I shrugged, pulled a handkerchief from my back pocket and wiped my face,
not understanding this logic at all.

	"Folks here don't like what's different, especially somebody who thinks
he's smarter'n them.  It fears them."

	I didn't argue with Homer, out of respect for his friendship. I sensed
this was darker than fear. I had never experienced hatred before and it
hung heavy on my spirit.

	I watched over my younger sisters carefully, but without interfering, because
even with a bunch of sisters I didn't know the ways of girls. Sometimes
Evangeline's smiling face and waves worked well with our two neighbor girls;
other times she cried because she felt that they poked fun at her and at
the rest of us.  

	One day Evangeline ran to the horse stalls where Marie-Anne and I were
finishing off the clean up.  "Stop!  Stop!  Listen to me."  I
put down the wheelbarrow and Marie-Anne leaned the long-handled shovel against
the post. Evangeline continued, excited and out of breath. "They invited
Jacqueline and me to come over.  They said they knew where their folks hid
wine and wouldn't it be fun to taste it," she said hugging herself
in glee. 

	 That heaviness of spirit overtook me again something fierce, "Don't
trust them."

    "Armand!" she screamed.  "I hate you for spoiling everything.
Marie-Anne!  Tell him to stop."

    "Be careful.  Please be careful," our oldest sister warned.

    Evangeline grabbed Jacqueline's hand,  "We're going and I hate
you for spoiling everything all the time."

	That night in the stable Evangeline wailed for almost an hour without relief.
 No matter what I said or did it made her carry on worse than before until
she finally blurted out, "It was pee.  It wasn't wine in the bottle.
 They told me  I gulped down pee."

	I turned to Marie-Anne who was a good problem-solver and between the two
of us we convinced Momma and ma tante Aurore to help scheme our teacher
and shoolmates into friendliness.  Poppa was off again at a horse auction
in Coaticook and I was especially happy he was at this time. I knew he wouldn't
like this much.

	The next morning I hitched Popper's prized Standardbred with the yellow-toned
mane to his new Phaeton hardwood buggy with its brass oil-burning lamps
and chrome fenders and drove to school. Enroute, we passed the smart-alec
neighbor girls without stopping.

	Before class I invited teacher to the house for tea on Saturday and asked
permission to invite the whole classroom to bring their best animal to our
pet-judging contest that same afternoon.  At recess, I gave the teacher
a snappy ride in the buggy and she stopped frowning at us the rest of the
day. At dismissal I invited the neighbor girls to join us riding home. I
even let each of them handle the reins a little distance, even though I
couldn't stand being near them.

    Momma baked her best apple-raisin pie for Saturday afternoon tea with
our teacher; and ma tante had given Marie-Anne money to buy a jar of penny
candy from the village store. Each kid who paraded in with a pet kitten,
duck, dog, pig, goat, or pony could grab a treat from the jar.

	Marie-Anne did a fast charcoal drawing of the contest winning pet and its
master. Everybody clustered around watching, oooing and aaahing as the picture
took shape, begging her to draw them too and she promised to draw a profile
of the three-legged race winner.  Momma and teacher brought platters of
cookies and pitchers of fresh milk to the sweaty bunch of partyers before
they headed home.  The neighbor girls asked me to drive them home in the
same buggy with the same horse and I begged off.  I had had enough of their
snooty ways for one day.

	"We're different here."  Marie-Anne said at the supper table
that night.  "And we have to use our heads to just get by, never mind
fit in." 

    Poppa came in unexpectedly.  Momma and ma tante scurried to set him
a place at the head of the table.  He sat, cigar between his teeth, eyes
growing colder and face turning purple as everyone jabbered excitedly of
the day's events.  With a swiftness that made my head spin, he flung the
cigar into the brass spittoon, which was always by his chair, and slammed
both fists on the table to shut us up.  With a hard eye on Momma, he started,
"Are you crazy letting these idiots spend time and money on those people.
 You can't buy     acceptance," he bellowed.  "Who needs it anyway?"
 His eyes scanned each of us, then stopped for what seemed an especially
long moment on Evangeline who sat rigid and stonefaced.  Momma shrunk before
our eyes.  Ma tante stood open-mouthed, staring at her brother.  Tears streamed
from Jacqueline's eyes.

     "Never, never buy friendship.  It doesn't work.  Hear?"

	We nodded in unison.

	He glared at Marie-Anne who, with Momma, always got the butt of his anger.
 "It was my idea," I squeaked out before he started on them. 
He swung in my direction, our eyes locked and with the strongest effort
of my life I outflanked him for the first time.  He banged the table again
and a cup crashed to the floor.

	"Clean this up," he shouted to his sister.  You, Marie-Louise
come with me."

	Momma followed him outside while we all scurried to clear away the table
and to get the dishes done.  Marie-Anne pulled me aside, "We need to
help her.  It was our plan."

	We ran to the stables yelling, "Poppa!  Poppa!"  Momma jerked
the corner of her apron to her mouth to keep from crying out when she saw
us running in.  	"Don't do this again,"  Poppa ordered between
clenched teeth and crashed out of the stable, heading toward the house.

	We threw our arms around Momma who didn't make a sound even though tears
gushed from her tightly closed lids and a white hand print was welting on
her scarlet cheek.

      Later that night Marie-Anne eased her straw mattress across the attic
floor, away from our snoring aunt Aurore, and closer to mine.

	"We've got to be smarter," she said.  "The English speakers
aren't the only ones we have to guard against."

	"I don't know how to protect the girls."

	"We'll work on it little by little, Armand.  I don't know any other
way."

	"Marie-Anne!  I can't sleep."

	"Say your rosary.  That'll help you konk out."

All Contents are Copyright©Connie Magnan Albrizio, 1998

LE BON JARDINIER ET LE BON DIEU

By Maureen Perry, Boston

"Je frémis et me sens comme la terre ouverte/ Toute grande aux pieds du semeur..."
--Marie Noël, Chant de Pâques
(Pris de La Neige Qui Brûle, par Raymond Escholier)*

Il faut de la lumière...La lumière du matin,
La lumière des yeux pleins de joie.

Il faut de la chaleur...La chaleur du soleil,
La chaleur d'un sourire

Il faut de l'eau...L'eau d'une douce pluie,
L'eau qui soulage une soif.

Il faut de la fraîcheur...La fraîcheur d'une brise,
La fraîcheur d'une parole d'espoir.

Il faut toutes ces choses...Pour faire pousser une fleur,
Pour faire pousser une âme.

Oui, il faut tous ces signes...Que le jardinier nous explique,
Que Le Bon Dieu nous donne.
*Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1957.

Collaborative Culture Writing

My Grandfather - a memory



By Paulette M. Barry, San Francisco, CA


My Grandfather - a memory


Dear Grandpa,

Or is it Grandfather or some other fashion of the word?  Do you or did you have a
preference?  Should my greeting be in Italian or are you bi-lingual now that you are in
heaven.

Heaven.  I guess your daughter is there too, my mother, Ann Marie?  And, I'll bet she
updated you on what's happened to me since you died but I guess I wanted to speak with
you myself.  After all, it's about time - we never spoke when you were on earth, did
we?

By now you know that it's me, Paulette, your granddaughter.  But, I wonder if I could
kind of remenis with you and tell you what I recall about you and see if it's the same
as your memory.

I can see you, glimpse you, almost touch you in the mist of those early morning days in
the early 1950's in Los Angeles.  I can smell the dew and feel the promise of another
summer day...that smell, that feeling so familiar, even now after all those years
later.  And I wonder sometimes, Grandpa, if my senses have stayed sharp because of the
memories of you.

I can still see you working with the vines.  The grapevines.  All the way up our
hillside.  And, you, working all day long, tending, tying, touching, evaluating,
planting.  Gently coaxing the vines to produce the grapes.

I can see you keeping the vines from falling to the earth.  The care you take, the
focus, the dedication.  I see you kneeling for hours, all day, day after day, doing you
work.

But, you never see me.  Or at least I don't think so.  I do not recall a single time
that you spoke to me.  Not once.

I realize now that you spoke no English.  How isolated that must have made you feel. It
must have only been through the vines that you could find expression, camaraderie,
solidarity, kinship.  Such silence surrounding you, enclosing you every day.

As a child I never knew that the language was a barrier.  I don't know what I assumed,
just that you never spoke to me.  It might have signaled the beginning of spending a
lifetime not questioning what seemed different - for me a lifetime habit of continuing
to assume that there are always reasons for things that I cannot understand - and that
those reasons are not always apparent to me.

What I did know of you I learned from mother.  She always told me stories about you and
such stories of you, Grandpa, Salvatore.  You know mother - always one for elaborate
stories, stories that, I learned much later in life, were not always true, or rather
hearts of stories were true, but real life to mother was clearly not enough - stories
were always better.

And, so, stories of you.  She said that you had lived in Pensacola, Florida for a time
and that you were the person who invented the glass-bottom boat.  Or, how about the
story that you had lived in Chicago and that you were a highly successful architect?
How wonderful, what a successful and creative man.

But, Grandpa, if you could speak no English, how could all of those things have been
so?  Is what I saw of you the truth?  Is what my mother told me the truth?  Are both
true?  Could it have been that, later in life, relocated to Los Angeles and the
unfamiliar, living in your daughter's house that you spoke your original tongue to mama
and to grandma?  I don't know.

But, I do remember what I saw.  I was about seven or eight years old and you were tall,
very tall with a broad chest.  Or, were you tall because I was so small, Grandpa?  I
saw you always with brown gabardine pants, baggy style.  I saw you with a brown
gabardine shirt, buttoned up to the top, even on the hottest of days, with the sleeves
rolled to your elbows.  I saw you in the broad rimmed fedora hat, also brown.

I can hear Grandma calling you into the house for lunch and you're stopping your work
to eat and then return to the vines.

I can remember that one day I didn't see you in the vines and I remember going to your
Rosary.  I remember that you died when I was very young, not much past eight.  I
remember mama mourning, closing off the house, drawing all the drapes so that the house
was dark and still.  I remember her sitting in the big chair with one of her cats and
crying, sobbing.

I remember, years later, but still a child, coming across a picture of you, Grandpa, in
mother's bottom bureau drawer.  The picture was about 11"x 14", it was black and white
and it was a professionally taken photograph of you, dead, in your casket, flowers all
surrounding you.

That photograph scared me to death.  I never told my mother that I had found it, after
all I was in a place that I shouldn't have been - her bureau.  But I couldn't sleep for
the longest time without seeing that picture in my mind's eye - I can still see it,
even now, as clearly as I could that day I opened the drawer.  To this day, I never
open drawers of others or even drawers that may have items in them that I am not privy
to.

So, dear Grandfather, my memories of you are my mothers stories, my horror at seeing
that picture of you, my own self watching you, following you along, silently as you
worked your vines.

So many years have past.  So much unexplained.  So much to be left that way.  But, I
can still see you, Grandpa, tending the vines with such care and love.  So quiet, so
focused, so isolated with someone so close by, watching you�but�forever silent.

Love,


Paulette 

Women's Culture

By Melissa MacCrae, Brewer