Regional Storyteller

Laurent d’Entremont

Perhaps the summer of 1943 was not as exciting as the summer of 1942, at least nobody made a movie about it, as far as I know. Yet I remember an incident that happened that summer as if it was only yesterday, even though I was only two years old at the time. Or, perhaps, I heard the story so many times that I believe I do remember.

In those days, the world was at war in far-away Europe, but in my Acadian village in Yarmouth County, daily life went on as usual.

My father had an office job and I did not have the faintest clue about what he was doing. My grandfather, on the other hand, was still lobster fishing and running the small family farm. That type of life I understood and loved.

Somewhere in a now forgotten photo album there is a war-time picture of me holding the rope while my grandfather’s old brown cow drank out of a wooden tub.

There were many teams of oxen in the village. Most if not all households had a vegetable garden for fresh products and a dozen hens for eggs. Some still had pigs and cows and a barn full of hay, not far behind the house. Of course, there was the little whitewashed building, the coldest building on the farm.

Life was simple then. Most farm wives made their own clothes, washing was done by hand with a scrub-board, often with homemade soap. All food was homegrown, my grandmother made her own butter daily; store bought margarine was still years in the future.

My mother’s Uncle Charles, known as Charlie Muir, lived next door. His had not been an easy life yet he was easy-going and loved by everyone who knew him.

Uncle Charles had married when he returned from the Great War, and to earn his living he went cod fishing with my grandfather aboard a schooner which I believe to be the Clark L. Corkum, although I cannot be sure of the vessel’s name.

One summer when they returned from a fishing trip, a group of women were waiting for them on the wharf. This could only spell bad news, especially when my grandfather and Uncle Charlie spotted their sister, Rose Edith, within the group. It was bad news, indeed. While they were away, Charles’ wife, Aunt Lizzie, had given birth, but something had gone terribly wrong and now wife and baby were both dead.

Still, somehow life went on and Uncle Charles remarried in a matter of a few years. Not only that, but by1943 him and his wife had six children ranging in ages from six to 18.

Besides being weight challenged, Charles second wife, Aunt Milda, was battling heart ailments, but still managed to do the chores and care for her growing family.

In late summer, Aunt Milda was doing the washing in a porch behind the house. I was two years old and outside the house with my mother when someone gave a terrifying scream, “she has collapse and can’t get up!” My mother ran, with me trailing behind, to the place where Aunt Milda had crashed into the woodbox, but it was too late. Uncle Charlie was widowed once again.

Uncle Charlie lived to marry one more time, this time in old age, after having been widowed for many years. His new bride came from the Boston area of the United States and I always felt she considered us country hicks, quite backwards compared with the people from where she came.

In any case, Charlie outlived his third wife and was widowed for a final time.

In the 1960s I fished for lobsters with Uncle Charlie aboard the Laurent & Remi. We had lots of fun, but nobody got rich.

That was a long time ago, and I still wonder if I really remember that sad incident from the summer of 1943, when I was barely two years old.

laudent@hotmail.com