By Terry Martin, Rumford, ME

It was a day probably not unlike this day.  A spectacular fall day.  The life of the Acadians was simple by our standards.  Every man and woman worked hard.  They lacked for nothing.  They raised wheat and other grains, flax, and a huge variety of vegetables.  Apple orchards were plentiful.  The fields were full of potatoes.  The Acadians raised fat cattle, and their yards were full of chickens and geese and clipped wild turkeys.  There were pigs for roasting and for lard, bacon and hams. 

They rarely saw money. There was no need.  They owned their own homes, raised their

own food and what they lacked, they could barter with a neighbor. 

Grandpre was a beautiful land.  It was a fertile land filled with cool mountain streams and crops that grew bountifully.

Their homes were taken up by a huge center room in which there was a large stone fireplace which provided heat.  It was large enough to roast the side of a calf or a whole pig. Cooking pots were hung there.  It was where the mother and father and perhaps the youngest children might sleep.  Older children had sleeping quarters in a loft.  It was not unusual for these Acadian families to boast twelve to twenty children.  The men hunted and trapped and fished.  Together with the women they worked in the fields.  When a boy was old enough, he joined his father in the farm work.  Girls helped their mothers with the housekeeping chores.    There were candles to be made, cheeses to be tended, geese to be plucked, cloth to be spun.  Quilts and fine lace and linens were made.  Mattresses and pillows stuffed with goose feathers or soft fragrant pine needles. A family made its own jellies, and wines.  In fact, it made almost everything it ate and drank and used.

But life, as they knew it was not all work.  The Acadians were a gay people who loved laughter and fun.  There were village musicians and village dances.  Everyone knew everybody else, and there were many celebrations, weddings, christenings, parties of all kinds. They were an affectionate people, close to each other, fond of their kind.  They got along with other people, too, except for the English. 

The Acadians were not educated in reading and writing.  There were no schools.  Travelers among them wrote that it was not known if any Acadian could even sign his name.    In the oath of allegiance they finally signed with the English, all signed their names with a cross. 

In their village and their homes they were interested in making them look pretty.  They loved flowers and almost every family had a garden of tall lilacs and vivid roses.  The people themselves were a handsome race, the men stocky and strong, the women striking, with brillant black eyes and hair, white teeth and fine features.  They were also very clean.  An Acadian housewife prided herself upon her scrubbed and gleaming floors, her shining cooking pots and her white linens.  Barns and outbuildings were kept orderly and neat. 

Although their lives were usually peaceful, the Acadians occasionally quarreled over boundary lines between farms and fields.  But, as a whole, my ancestors seemed to have

gotten along pretty well.  Against outsiders, they seem to have stood together as one. 

Chore followed chore.  The hay had to be brought in, the wheat cut, the cattle and fowl fed.  There was milking to be done, eggs to be gathered.  On Saturday they might wander in the village, trading their produce, gossiping, the children playing , the young men waiting to meet their girls at a Saturday night dance.  Sunday was devoted to church and visiting, and long walks in the lovely apple orchards.

Like most simple cultures, these people were fond of stories and often an older man or woman would spend the evening telling long tales.  Some of which had been handed down from parents or grandparents who had brought them from France. 

When all the stories were told, the evening would end, for there was much to be done the next day.

Thus did the Acadians life.  Life was hard but life was secure and happy.  It must have seemed to the Acadians that nothing would ever change.  They must have felt they had established and built a world of their own that would go on forever.

Then the English came.