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PUB. Lirinf Lore in Sew England
(New Hampshire)
M. Henri Lemay (Froneh)
Victoria Lineal.*
yc DATE 00/39 4
ASECKER DAVI
pouicEs GIVEN (t)
XIMMENTS
N.H. Federal Writers' Project Subject: The Manchester Picture
,January 10, 1939
RBMINISCINCES OF M. HMI LBW
By Victoria Langlois
M. Henri Lesley is seventy-three years old. He is in good health and
was active in business until two years ago when he was ill during the entire
winter. Now he has retired and has sold his interests in his jewelry store
to his brother. He seemed glad to answer my questions and to tell me about
geld times."
Last year he spent the winter in Florida. He says it is very beauti-
ful but makes people feel lazy, as if they were on a perpetual vacation.
Canada is toe cold, he says, and Florida too warm, and he likes New Kamp
shire the best of all.
often I was young," M. Limey begins, II wanted to be a pilot. branche,'
From my own girlhood spent in Canada I knew this to be a pilot who is
stationed at the heat of the St. Lawrence Gulf and, as a transatlantic
steamer oases in, takes the helm and guides the ship up the St. Lawrence
River to ;poles and Montreal. Bach man, so engaged, must follow a complete
and special *ours* in seamanship before reaching the rank of pilote branch*.
The pilots are licensed by the government and are authorised to do their
work by the several maritime companies of Canada.
"In the fall of 1801, I started from Deschambeam on the Ste Lawrence
River to carry a load of hay and grain to Lake Champlain," M. Loney continues.
'We went as far as Whitehall and then my brother, ?obi*, and I decided to
take the railroad train for Manchester Where we knew we could find work in
the mills. I had no intention of staying here. Yet I remained for twenty
years before I even went back to my old home for a visit.
"I was sixteen and Tobie eighteen years old When we arrived in New
Hampshire. How lonesome we were at firsti But soon we began to get ao-
tiaainted with French-speaking people and, little by little, we became ac-
customed to our new surroundings.
"The Manchester population was made up of Yankees, Irish and French at
the time and there were no Greeks, Jews or Poles in the city.
110h, yes, we went to work in the mills. They were the big source of
industrial life. At first I earned seventy-five cents a day and my brother
fifty cents and, though you may not believe it, we lived frugally but de-
cently on these wages. You see we could buy good steak for twenty-five
cents; chicken cost twelve cents a pound; a soup bone with much seat on it
was only four cents a pound; and eggs were three dozens for a (porter of a
dollari No meat came from the west and there were four or five slaughter-
houses in the outskirts of the city.
"Two or three times a week, cattle going to the Brighton stockyards
were driven down Elm Street and men were hired to stand at the corners of
the side streets to keep the animals in line. All the public parks and pri-
vate properties on the route were surrounded with iron or wooden fences to
protect them from straying cattle.
"Except for an oil lantern or a small gas light here and there, the
streets were not lighted at night. I remember very well that I bought a
pretty little kerosene oil lantern to carry on my arm. How bright and
shiny it wasi And it was. very handy to go home after an evening When I
slier voir lø s fill.. (spend an evening with the girls)," N. Lew, with a
twinkle in his very blue eyes, added.
"Nor* than once I made a hit with this little lantern when I brought
the girls home after a ,soiree dansante, where we danced the cotillion and
square dances.
"Oh, yes, the parents objected more or less about letting young people
go dancing. N. le Care was very much against it; but ----we arranged to go
just the easel The girls told their mothers about it only the day after,
you see: But no harm was done. We were net as 'excited' as the young of
nowadays, but don't forget that we were hard at work from six o'clock in
the morning until six o'clock at night!
"We French people kept together and made our own good times. Every
Sunday evening some five or six people assembled under one roof, living
up to the old saying, Lei amis de MAS amis sont nos amis. They were plea-
sant, those meetings.
'You ask how we French were accepted in Manchester. Oh, yes, we must
admit that the Yankees and Irish did not like us, No, they did not like us
at all: They appeared to bitterly resent our coming here.' NI. Lew
laughed a bit here. "Not more than twenty years ago a gond friend of mine,
a genuine old Yankee with whom I have had fregiuent business dealings and
political contacts then and whom I always see with pleasure now, said to
me: 'I like you, Henryi You're a good fellowl Not exactly like the other
Frenchmen I have known hereJ Are you sure you're pure French?' I assured
him that every drop of my blood was of French extraction.
"After a few years in the mills, I began to grow dissatisfied and felt
that I should learn some kind of trade. Ay this time my parents, two sis-
ters and a younger brother had followed Tobie and me here. We lived in a
block where there were six other French families and in our few spare hours
we had a gay time together. We all worked hard but lived comfortably.
"The girls earned from fifty to seventy-five cents a day. Each had
her 'best dress' made of fine wool and trimmed with bits of velvet, silk
or lace for Sunday and she always managed a new hat for every ether sea.
son. Girls wore very high boots then and I remember that once when I had
a job in a shoestore I sold a pair of shoes with twenty buttons to a young
lady one Saturday night:
'Al]. the time I was looking about for a trade to follow and finally
I hit upon the idea of becoming a clock -maker. That was a good move on
my part for I came to like the work, and, having a flair for it, began to
make a good living.
"I now became interested in politics and occupied minor pests *midi
made me aware of the importance of civic institutions. I became a citizen
in 1887 and have been active in the associations which take care of the
naturalization of newcomers. Now they come no more from Canada for the
government has awakened to its mistake of allowing so many French-Canadians
to become citizens of the United States.
bought this house about thirty years ago, when Webster Scheel was
laid, a man named Martin bought several houses which had been built around
there right after the Civil War and which were inhabited by veterans. He
made cellars and dug wells on this street and the houses were then trans-
ported and sot upon them without mishap. You can realize how old these
houses are if you look at the next one on the right side.-- It is just as
it was then.
'I entirely renovated the inside of my house and installed pluMbing
and central heating. The well in the cellar has been filled up; my wife
was always afraid that I'd fall into it. The outside has been refaced
in crushed stone; but is still the same old house.'