Document text
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 1
niis iAL HuSTOhY OF DAVID MORIN
17/04/
Dave is of French Canadian ancEEtry having been born in
Quebec in 1870. He came to Old Town in 1882 with his parents
and brothers and sisters. There were twenty five in the family.
Has a wife and six children, threl of whom are boys, and three
girls. One of the boys works as a drug clerk in a local drug
store, once sells life insurance. Two of the girls ose Astrried.
He went to Salem, fassachuaet s, in 1853 and remained there two
years. While there he worked in a textile mill and attended niEht
school. RetrninEto Old Town he worked in a box mill for twenty
yea, and then took over the tuanagement of a pool and billiard
hall where candy, soft drinks, cigars, and frlAt Well) sold. He
became very ill yith diabetes several years aLp and was forced
to retire. He locs to be in exellent health now and much
younger than his sixty eiOit years. Is a very co -d checker player
anC used to play pool and billiards very well. Attends the Cath-
olic Church and is interested In local politics, and wsrld af airs.
Chief in erest seen a to be in his home and chi dren. Is about 5
feet 8 inches tall and dark complexioned. Has dep set eyes and
pro.Anent chin, and if his thick, iron gray hair were shaved off,
he -)t.ld loo not unlike Signor MUasblini• Like most of the Morins,
he wns alwaye well.lilsed. The store belonged to his brothers Frank
and Lawrence. The Norins are all very pleasant people to meet
perhaps that i why they have Orle so v:ell in busies-,.
Nalne
Living Lore
Old Town 1
THE LIOE OF DAVE MORIN, FRENCH CANADIAN
(As Told by Himself to Robert F.Grady)
l'Ah, boll* there* It's a nasty night* You'd thiett therg
do something about these sidewalks. Did you see in the papers
that they was kickin, about the streets down in Bangor/ It's just
as bad up hero. They never think of the little streets like Carrel
and Willies now. When I worked in the store I used to go uptown
early in the mornings, and the streets would always be ploughed
out. Lack of money? Where is all the money, and who's got it' Go
uptown at night and you see the streets lined with care. Some peo-
ple must have money.
They 'Charged me $75.00 for taxes on my house last year. $75.00.
Forty years ago the tax was just $15.00. The last year Hickey was
mayor they sent me a tax bill of $99.00. The people all around mei
with houses just as good as mine weren't anyvbero near as
much. I took that bill up to George DesJardin and I says, 'Look
here, George, you may collect this bill, but if you do you'll never
collect another cent of taxes trim me.' He said be had nothing to
do with the size of the bill, and I'ld have to take it up with the
assessors. I saw one of thee an the street the next day and I told
hie just what I thought of the whole set-up. A few days later I met
George, and he says, 'It's all right, Dave, you can come in and pay
that bill if you writ to. It's been adjusted and I think 70U111
find it perfectly satisfactory.'
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town .2
I came here from Web.. in 1882, when I vas twelve years old*
There were twenty five of us in the family. We had to sell our
farm to get here* A cousin of the old mans old Henry Martin,
of West °litmus you remember him? wrote to us and asked us to
come here and run his farm on shares* When we got here we found
that if the farm had been in Quebec it could have been big enough
to support two families, but it wouldn't bar*. Oh yes, the ground
is madh richer up there. We couldn't all live off the fare, so
some of us had to get jobs* I corked in the box mill twenty years
before I .got that job in the store.
*There were no immigration laws when we ease here. They have-
nt had those very long you know: I don't know if the B. A. vas
running then or not. You see we came in the other way* From the
western part of the state through Danville Junction. I remember
we was held up half an hour because the old man had fifty pounds
too much baggage.
'They used to go up and get 'en in those days. They didn't
have people enough here to run the cotton mills and the factoriee.
They used to go up there and offer people good jobs at good gages
and their fare paid to any place they vented to go. A lot of them
went to Massachusetts* I corked in Salsa in a cotton mill for a
while. That's quite a city, Salem. A lot of them couldn't speak
any English, of courses The boss used to use me once in a while
as an interpreter. I remember once he came over to me and said,
'Dave, you see that little girl over there her name is Marie.
She just spoiled a yard of cloth. Cone an over and give her hell
Give her a good baelins out and tell her it's cumin' from me.'
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 3
1/I talked to her for a while but of course the boss couldn't
tell what I was talkin' about. If he had I probably would have
got fired on the spot. When that son of a b---. got out of the
way helped her fix her machine.
*A lot of those people didn't intend to stay here. As soon
as they had earned enough money to pay for their farms they vent
back to Canada. Some of them stayed here and some of them came
back again from Canada. When they oome over hero now they stay.
*Conditions have Changed a lot since we left there. We used
to raise everything we needed. We raised flax and wool and spun
them into yarn. We wove the cloth right in the house on a hand
loom. We made everything we wore Shoes too. They wore moccasins
the year around summer and winter. My father was a shoemaker
and a brick mason. They heard he was a mason when be came to Old.
town, and they used to come and get him to do mason work. Don't
you remember when he used to go down to Bangor and bring back a
hide and cut it up to make moccasins when he had nothing else to
do?
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 4
"I don't think we had to pay any taxes on our farm when we
lived in Quebees Of course I was only a boy when I lived there
and I wouldn't know much about that, but if they paieiny taxes,
-they didn't amount to much. I remember every one had to keep the
road clear in front of bis farm. (Clear of snow.) Thy don't
weave their own cloth up there now. They send the 'pool or flax
to some big place like Rivioreodu Loup and they get back cloth.
That is one of the biggest towns in Canada. It had a population
of about 7000 when we lived in Quebec, and it's bigger than Bangor
now. I was back there just once since I left. That was twenty
five years ago on a vacation trip.
"Everybody in Quebeo speaks French. I remember one night an
old fellow came to the door. You'd all him a bum here, but we
didn't call them that there. He couldn't speak French, but he
showed us by signs that he wanted to stay all night and that he was
willing to sleep on the floor. None of us was afraid of.himi It
was a rule up there never to turn anybody away. We got him some-
thing to eat, and Oen he got thrbagh with the meal my father shoes
ed him where he could sleep. He left after breakfast the next morn.
ing without us knowing anything *WOO him. Can you imagine anything
like that happening around here,
Maine
Living Lore
Old Tom 5
*The French are proud of their language: They speak only the
purest French in Quebec: I went to school up there only a few
years. but I went to night school in Salem: After they go to school
up there a few years they study English.. The people can read it
pretty well, but they have a hard time to understand it in a (maw
variation: French is all you bear up there. If a Frandkman comes
down here and starts a business be has to learn to speak English,
and if any one goes in business up there he has to learn French,,
It doesn't make any difference if he's an /riabaan or a Swede:
There are plenty of French in New Brunswick -and Nova Scotia and
They're more apt to be able to speak English over that way: The
French of Quebec must feel Superior to the New Brunswick French,
We call them Shediacss but of comp they don't all come from Shediac.
I took out naturalization papers twenty years ago: I hear
they're rounding up the French Canadians that haven't, and they're
sending them back to Canada: Serves them right if they don't want
to be citizens.
'When we moved down to Carrol Street they were all English
around there and I was afraid the kids wouldn't be able to speak
French when they grim up: I says to my mite. 'I'll asks a trade
with you* mill speak only French in the house until the kids get
big: Then they'll be able to speak it: They'll bear enough English
outside:' And that was all we ever did speak until the kids got
out of school: When my boy Rudolph went down to Maine (the Univer..
sity of Maine) he could speak English as well as any one but be
could speak French just as well: Re took part in platys down there:
My boy that works in the drug store over here says that knowing
how to speak French has been worth a thousand dollars to him:
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 6
"Morin _is a very old French name. In France you see it
over many shops* The Morino came to Quebec frm France origin.
ally.. We never attempted to trace the family back, but I know
the Morins we2e of noble blood away back.
"Did you see where the king of England is coming over here?
Nos .I don't mean that visits the paper says he's coming to stay*
They claim they're gettinc, roady for it up in Ottawa. That little
island is apt to be an unhealth7 place before long* Canada would
be a much safer place for the Rngland is apt to loae that
island and all her colonial ,oseessions 1.: the old world besides.
Mussolini :Ity conquer the Frenchmen, but he'll never conquer
France* France will always be there*
"My children were born here and brought up here* What would
you call them? Are they French, or Americans, or Yankees? What
is a Yankee, anyway? The Indians ara the only real Yankees, if
you come riht down to it. ;d10 else has a right to be called a
Yankee? I beare a speaker down here a while k_o talking on that
very subject. He said that the :i'rench in Maine are just az much
Yankees ar any no. W1,17 not? Look back thouEb the histories and
you'll see that the French wez.e here just a soon as the English*
The .114Americsna ;Jere then were the Indians* litATO the descendant
of the EnAlish any mere right to be calletlYnnkees than the descendants
of the French?
"Ovide Morin, over .Lere in the store, could tell you a lot
about the early French* He's illterested in that kind of stuff, and
his father, Ovide Senior, ought to ba CAA* to tell you a lot more.
lie va;.8 older than I was when we left Quebec, and he :Juld remember
more about it.
"Well, zee you later. If I can help you any more, let me know."