Document text
ORIGINAL MSS. OR FIELD NOTES (Check one)
PUB. Living Lore in New Enjland
(Maine)
TITLE Ovide Morin, French Canadian
WRITER Robert Grady
NCB 1ES. PP. 7
CHECKER DATE
SOURCES GIVEN Interview
COMMENTS
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 1 /9:3 3%-?
PERSONAL HISTORY OF OVIDE MORIN, FRENCH CANADIAN
Ovide Morin, Sr. 224 Bosworth Street, Old Town, Maine. (Bos-
worth Street is on Treat and Webster Island, popularly known as
"French Island." because the population is almost exclusively French.)
Mr. Morin, a French Canadian, was born in St. Epphane, (pronounced
Saint .F and A) Quebec, in 1862. He is 76 years old, has a wife and
eight children all boys except two, and all married except two of
the boys. Three of the boys operate the 0. G. Morin wholesale and
retail fruit business. They deal in fruit, candy, ice cream, cigars,
etc., and own much real estate in Old Town including the brick block
which houses their business, and doctor's offices on the floor above.
They make a high quality ice cream. Mr. Morin came to Old Town in
1881 when be was nineteen years old, and has lived here ever since.
Had very little schooling, but reads French and speaks English with
a noticeable accent. Vocabulary is not extensive. Is very intelli-
gent. Has worked on the river, in sawmills and as a carpenter and
a brick and stone mason. Catholic. Lives next to his married son,
Ovide, Jr. Both houses are good. Mt. Morin's house is very clean
inside and is tastefully and expensively furnished. He is about 5
feet 6 inches tall, tanned, of wiry build. Hair is thick and iron
gray, and his brown eyes are bright and alert. Appears to be in the
fifties rather than in the seventies. Has a wide mouth that seams to
be a characteristic of this branch of the Morin family.
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 2
Wife is an extremely attractive woman in looks and manner.
Seems to be younger than her husband. Has remarkably attractive
hair white wavy, and very "alive" looking.
Probably Mr. Morin himself did not save very much, but his
sons, who started and who operate the 0. G. Morin business, are
among the wealthy men of the town. They are all very pleasant
to meet.
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 1
THE LIFE OF OVIDE MORIN, FRENCH CANADIAN
(As Told By Himself To Robert F. Grady)
Mr. Morin: "Well, I don't know what I can tell you. I don't
speak English very well, and maybe my wife could tell you more
about things. If we could speak in French
Mrs. Morin: "Oh, you can talk well enough to tell him what he
wants to know."
Mr. Morin: "Well, I was born in St. Epphane that's what it is
in French can you handle that all right?"
(He repeated the name two or three times, and I got it down as St.
Stephanie, but after I spelled out what I had written, Mrs. Morin
wrote it out for me correctly. It's pronounced St. F. and A so my
mistake was a pardonable one, though it wasn't due to a mispronoun-
ciation on the part of Mr. Morin.)
Mr. Morin: "St. Epphane was just a little place. I couldn't say
bow many people lived there. Yes, it was ablaut as big as West Old
Town. (150 200 population). There was only a little church
thdre and a little school. Just a lot of farms there. My father
helped to build that church. He was a carpenter and a stone mason
and a shoe maker. Some times when he had a small piece of hide
left over he would make a pair of moccasins for some child who had
nothing to wear on his feet. Some times there were children up.
there who had to go barefoot in the winter time."
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 2
Mrs. Morin: "Do you know there art some places up in this country,
near Fort Kent and the border, where conditions are about the same
as they were in Canada then. Tht children have nothing to wear on
their feet in the cold weather, some times they have little to eat
and no money to buy anything. They have tables made of three boards
nailed to the wall, and all they have for chairs are benches made
of wood like you see sometimes. Those places are off the line of
travel and people don't see much of them. It is terrible that such
things should be, and it is too bad that something can't be done
about it."
Mr. Morin: "Some farmers can take a load of vegetables, or grain,
or fruit to the big city and bring back money from the sale of
their produce. But they have to have money first to buy horses,
or tractors, or fertilizer. It takes money to make money, and
those poor people haven't any.
Conditions were very bad up there. Mister, what would you think of
gnyone who had to work a month to get 65.00 and sometimes you had
a hard time to get the money, at that. 50 cents a day was big pay.
When I was young I worked sometimes helping farmers pick their pota-
toes. One man offered Me 25 cents a day if I wuuld work for him.
We worked from four oclock in the morning until six oclock at night,
and then the farmer put us down cellar storing the potatoes until
.1111Pa
twelve ()clock at night. I told him I'd work for twenty4five cents
a day, but I wouldn't do two day's work in one. I told him he hired
me for twenty4five cents a day, and If he wanted me to do two day's
work in one day he'd have to pay me fifty cents. He says, 'Oh, come
on. Get through with the job and I'll pay you twenty five cents ex-
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 3
tra when we get done. But I wouldn't do it, no sir. I wouldn't
work two days for twenty five cents.
"My father worked twelve and fourteen hours a day. That was
a little saw mill up there, and it had only one saw. The end of
the log stuck up, and one man had a hold of the saw up above, and
another man held it below. They sawed like this:"
(From Mr. Morin's description I gathered
done in this fashion:)
"It was done by hand,
and I've seen them saw
enough slabs and boards
that way to build a house.
It was slow work. Do you
know, mister, there was a
saw mill run that way with
one hand saw right up here
in Pea Cove, and not very
long ago, either, no sir.
"What would you think,
mister, of
a girl
that worked a whole
year for what do you think 02.00.
that the sawing was
Yes, she did housework."
Mrs. Morin: "We were up there on a visit some years ago, and I mat
that crixl again. She was a woman then about fifty years old then
and she was wearing a funny hat and funny shoes. I don't know whether
you ever saw any like them or not. They had yellow metal plates on
the toes. The metal went in around the sole and came up over the toe,
Her hat had a very narrow brim and a very high crown, and she was
wearing a homespun dress."
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 4
Mr. Morin: "She kept those clothes for forty years. She had just
that one hat and the shoes. The people she worked for gave her a
homespun dress every year. She got two dollars a year and she
saved money on it."
Mrs. Morin: "We went to church together and when we came back we
went up to her room and she took off her hat and her shoes and she
put the shoes away in a box and the hat she put away so carefully
in a tall hat box. She said it was the only hat and shoes she ever
had and she wanted to keep them as long as she lived."
Mr. Morin: "The girls wouldn't save much on two dollars a year now."
Mrs. Morin: Nell, they do spend too much. They were extravagant,
especially during the war."
Mr. Morin: "Every man had to keep the road clear in front of his
farm. That was so they could get to church. There were fences on
each side of the road and the snow drifted in there. Sometimes
after a heavy storm it would take three weeks to.get the road clear.
You'd see men out there shovelling away. It used to drift back in
again after it was shovelled out. Sometimes people had to go to
church on snowshoes. I remember once when a boy was very sick and
in danger of dying. It took a doctor three days to. get to him from
the nearest town on account of the deep snow.
"I don't remember that we ever had to pay any taxes up there.
If we did it wasn't very much. Some of the people up there didn't
have very much to eat. They got along on bread and pork sometimes
quite a while.
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 5
"I worked off and on for twenty five cents a day and after five
years of that I didn't have a cent to my name. When I was nineteen'
told my father I was going to Maine. I wasn't going to work all
my life for nothing, and I knew I could get a dollar a day in Maine.
My father says, 'my boy, I guess you're right. We'll pack up and all
of us go to Maine.'
"I couldn't speak a work of English when I got here. No, I
didn't have any trouble gettinl a job or gettinI along with the
others. You see, there were so many French. There were a lot of
saw mills here then. There was Jordan's, Barkers, and Longleys.
That was George Longley's father that run the mill. I got a job in
Barkers mill. I told the boss when I went there I couldn't under-
stand English and he says, 'That's all right, I speak French and
all you got to do is understand ms.'
"I worked in the saw mills, in the woods, and on the boom.
When I went to work on the boom they paid the people who didn't
know much about the work 75 cents a day. The old hands got a dollar
a day. We got our board, too.
"Gene Mann was the boss then you remember him? And how he
could stay on a logt I've seen him jump on a log, kick the wedge
out and roll it across the .stream.
"One day I hollered out, 'Hey, Genet Would you like to have
me out there with you?"
"He looked over and kept right on rolling the log.
'Would you like to get wet, my friend?' he says.
"I could never stay on a log. I never learned bow."
(It was possible to be a good worker on the boom and still not
be able to "ride" logs. That was a highly skilled performance.)
Maine
Living Lore
Old town 6
"One day Gene was going by where I was working and I says,
'Look here, Gene. I can dO this work lust as well as those fellows
over there, can't I?'
'Sure you can,' he says.
'Well, how is it,' I says, 'I get only 75 cents a day while
they get $1.00?'
'Whattl says Gene. 'You mean you get less than they do?'
'The timekeeper just went by,' I says, 'and he told me I was
gettint 75 cents.'
'I'll speak to that timekeeper,' Gene says. 'Don't you worry
any more. You'll get just what those fellows get.'
wYes• he was a fine man all those Mann boys were.
"Some of those fellows certainly could stay on the logs. I was
down near the river here one day, and a fellow came along that wanted
to get on the other side. There was just a log there that had been
in the water a long time, and it was pretty well wateraoaked. That
fellow took that log and rode it across the river. He was in the
water up to his waist all the time. I don't see how he did it.
"I worked on the new brick church down here. (St. Josephs).
I was doing rough work and one day the boss came around and says,
'Morin, your father was a good brick mason. I haven't got enough
Masons. Can't you lay bricks?'
'I told him I built lots of chimneys and I probably could if
he wanted me to.'
'All right,' he says, 'come over here and start on this corner.'
'I can't do that,' I says, 'I can layLbricks along -the wall,
but I can't work on that corner.
1Gwan,' he says, 'I got it all marked out for you. Go over there
and lay those bricks.'
Maine
Living Lore
Old Tow 7
"Well, I built it up five feet and I stood, back and looked
at it and it was just as straight as a die. After that I called
myself a bricklayer. I worked on some of the best brick buildings
in the town and sonetimes I go over there and look at them. They're
lust as good as ever.
"When I came here there was no Catholic church in Old Town.
There was a small one down in Great Works and they moved that up
on Water Street about two years after I got here. It was big when
you remember it but that was because they built a piece on after-
wards. Father Trudell was the pastor. lie wasn't the pastor when
the church was down in Great Works.
down there."
I think it was an Irishman