Richmond, Now and Then: An Anecdotal History from the Eastern Townships
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Richmond, Now and Then: An Anecdotal History from the Eastern Townships
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781771861281 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Baraka Books |
| Publication date: | 10/16/2017 |
| Pages: | 200 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.60(d) |
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CHAPTER 1
A Town in Troubled Times
THE TOWN OF RICHMOND finds itself both bigger and smaller than it once was. As incorporated in 1882, Richmond was demarcated by the St. Francis River to the west and surrounded by the rural municipality of Cleveland, from which it was carved, on the other three sides. It grew by a half on January 29, 1999, when it absorbed the Village of Melbourne, which had at one time been its more prosperous sibling; the Village of Melbourne was incorporated before Richmond and, for a time, was more populous than Richmond. More recently, Richmond has been stretching a little to better accommodate its industrial park; parcels of a few dozen acres of contingent land have been acquired from Cleveland either by a monetary purchase or by a land exchange.
The boundaries that delineate the Town of Richmond form an irregular polygon with its share of acute and otherwise inexplicable angles. On the ground, where those cartographic straight lines are invisible, the result is not without some curious ironies. One is that Richmond Regional High School, erected in 1968, sits clumsily on the town's line; the building and soccer fields cleanly bisected. Another is that both at the north end and south end of the town are hayfields and pasturelands that lie within the Town's boundaries.
The Town of Richmond also has what might be called extra-territorial holdings. For example, St. Anne's cemetery rests entirely in Cleveland Township but is part of Richmond's jurisdiction. More significantly, the Town's water supply comes from a newly drilled well a few kilometres upstream, in Cleveland, while the Town's sewage treatment ponds are just downstream, in Cleveland, but on plots of land that belong to Richmond. (At one time, the Town owned a dam some thirty kilometres distant on Lake Brompton that served to control the water level of Salmon Creek, the source of the Town's drinking water at the time.)
Confined to a small territory (seven square kilometres), Richmond's population, now a little under 3200, has been as high as 5000, a number achieved when economic conditions were different and when families boasted many more children than they do today.
On Canada's one hundred and fiftieth birthday, Richmond's annual budget was just under five million dollars, a sum spent on road repair, snow removal, water treatment, garbage collection, police security and varying levels of financial support to different nonprofit, community organizations that range from youth soccer to meals-on-wheels.
As is commonly the case with small municipal governments, Town administrators struggle to do all that is needed with the money available while homeowners complain that taxes are too high. In the case of Richmond, both viewpoints are justified. For the last several years the Town has been receiving an annual péréquation, an equalization payment disbursed by the provincial government to towns that are recognized as underprivileged.
Nowhere is the Town's status as underprivileged more evident than on Main Street.
Seen from any of the small aircraft that occasionally fly a few thousand feet over the town, especially during the summer on clear, sunny days, Richmond first appears like a carelessly thrown but comforting quilt: rooftops, treetops, a smattering of blue, sparkling pools. Then, very suddenly, the brightness below becomes barren: black tarred rooftops, strips and squares of asphalt, an uninviting no-man's land. A moment later the quilt is back, albeit only briefly. Then the town is gone and below flows the river through fields and forests cut by rail beds and roadways, and sprinkled with human habitats.
Richmond's Main Street, rue Principale, (or as it is sometimes heard to be called, Principale Street) is less dramatic when seen at ground level. Still, it is a noticeably unattractive downtown core. At the south end sits an oversized grocery store, finished in corrugated metal; the squat box is disturbingly similar to the railway box cars that roll by thirty metres away. Shortly after it was erected a decade ago, it earned the dubious distinction of being named the ugliest building in Quebec. But the grocery chain (and its uncompromisingly inexpensive design) was chosen over others because it promised the lowest prices, prices most likely to be within the range of affordability of the population to be served.
Richmond's péréquation is not newly won. Poverty has been with the Town for some time, if not from the very beginning. It is rare in human history that an accumulation of wealth by one individual or one group did not entail the impoverishment of others. During Richmond's early years, and before, there were benevolent societies, often church-based, that tried to ensure that those less fortunate had at least the bare necessities to remain alive. Today the Town acts, to the extent that it can, to help that percentage of the population that lives below the poverty line, citizens who survive from one welfare payment to the next. Besides an active participation in the Christmas Basket Campaign, the Town has been administering some three dozen subsidized housing units erected about twenty years ago by the provincial government. (The task is scheduled to be transferred soon to another administrative system.) There is always a waiting list for these apartments as their rental fee is set at twenty-five per cent of the occupant's income. The lower one's income, the more attractive subsidized housing is. For a single person living on a monthly welfare cheque of eight hundred dollars, an Office municipal d'habitation apartment is a boon. The units are located in three different buildings set in residential neighbourhoods.
But, for every individual fortunate enough to find subsidized housing, there are at least two or three others searching for the cheapest rent possible. Virtually all of those cheap rents are to be found on Main Street, a short walk from the big box grocery store.
CHAPTER 2
Christmas on Main Street
THE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS have already been up for a while on many of the homes in the residential areas. Sometimes it's just a string or two of artfully placed lights, sometimes it's an overabundance of energy-draining bulbs accompanied by a yard-full of inflatable plastic decorations. But not on Main Street.
This is a Main Street that has seen better days. Lots left empty by buildings lost to fire or old age remain empty. Sometimes it's just the apartments upstairs that bring in revenue; the storefronts remain vacant despite the 'for sale' or 'for rent' signs. There are still a few dozen businesses (some of them doing well) along the three-block stretch of the downtown area, but there are also buildings that once bustled with commerce and are now residential units.
There are very few Christmas lights on Main Street; none on the building where Len and Tracy live; but then, all the other apartments in the building are vacant.
"There'll be three of us," says Len. "We'll have a fondue. We're going to celebrate on the twenty-fourth."
"I'm working on the twenty-fifth," says Tracy. "It's going to be just another day. We're not putting up a tree but we do exchange presents between ourselves."
"Although the present is never really a surprise," adds Len, "because we always check what the other person wants."
It's estimated that in North America up to twenty percent of the presents purchased at Christmas go almost directly into the garbage.
Len and Tracy couldn't afford a mistake of that magnitude. They live on about one thousand dollars a month which comes in part from Len's Quebec pension (he's sixty-three) and in part from Tracy's nine-dollar-per-hour job. They pay just over four hundred dollars per month for a five-room apartment. They don't own a car. At different times over the last several years, either one or the other has had recourse to welfare. Some years, they've asked for a Christmas basket and some months are more difficult than others.
It wasn't always so. At one time, for Len, money was plentiful.
"I was born in Denmark," he says. "My mother was a war bride and my father was in the air force. I was eighteen months old when I came to Canada and I've lived in practically every province in the country as my father moved from one base to another. At one point, he was stationed in France, and rather than send me to a Department of National Defence school, my mother sent me to live with one of my uncles in Denmark and I went to school there for four years. I'm bilingual, but in English and Danish."
Len graduated from high school twice: once in Denmark and a second time in Ontario. While still in his teens, he enlisted in the army where he spent two years.
After his stint in the military, he found work as a car mechanic. A few years later, he set his sails on a different course and started selling insurance, a job at which he proved to be more than proficient. He found time to enrol at York University where he earned a degree. He rose into management positions. He also started dabbling in real estate with fortuitous timing; the Toronto real-estate boom made him a millionaire.
"My second wife was from St. Felix de Kingsey," he says, "and, at a certain point, we bought a nice place on five acres of land. I also bought a small company that manufactured hi-tech equipment for geological surveying. I moved the company here, to Richmond, and things went well for a time. We were selling products to Norway, Germany, Australia, and even to the United States Navy."
Then an oil crisis suddenly caught Len unawares. Unable to get the financing he would have needed to stay afloat, the company went bankrupt, as did Len. That was just over a decade ago. Since then he has worked at a variety of odd jobs and today he describes himself as semi-retired.
"In retrospect," he says, "I think that if I'd moved my company across the border to Plattsburg — which I seriously considered doing — I might well still be in business. I opted not to. It's one of those mistakes we sometimes make in life."
"I'm not whining or complaining," he continues. "You play the cards you're dealt. I had a very interesting life — I did a lot, I travelled, I met very interesting people (including Christopher Plummer; I was an extra in a film called Highpoint in which he starred). I have no trouble accepting where I am today. In the summer I grow asparagus on a small plot behind the building. I look after my houseplants, I read, someone occasionally brings me a computer that needs looking at. I've been working on a cookbook which I hope to have on the Internet early in the new year.
"As far as Christmas goes," he says, "I think it's about kids. I grew up an only child and I have wonderful memories of Christmas, of going out carolling, of making presents for a gift exchange. I'd say that today Christmas is too commercial; stores start playing Christmas music far too early."
What, Len was asked, would he wish for if he could be granted one wish?
"Only one?" he says with a laugh.
He pauses a minute and then adds, "World peace?" but he's chuckling as he says it.
"At my age, what would I wish for?" he asks rhetorically. "Money is not really any longer important to me. For Tracy, perhaps. Although even then, for Tracy, what I really wish is for a family reconciliation, something that I couldn't buy for her regardless how much money I had.
"No," he says finally, "I don't really have any aspirations left and I can't really think of anything I'd want to have for Christmas."
Eight years after Len and Tracy told their story, their address is still Main Street, Richmond, but they've moved half a kilometre north, out of the Town's commercial core, to a nicer apartment not far from St. Bibiane's Church.
CHAPTER 3
The Women of Main Street
THAT MAIN STREET is impoverished is clear to see, but that is not the commercial core's only distinguishing feature. The other notable aspect of Richmond's Main Street is not evident to a visitor passing through, nor even necessarily to people who live in Richmond. This snapshot of Main Street is dated 2010.
Main Street is gap-toothed and even though a number of storekeepers have refurbished their storefronts, the term seedy still suggests itself. Yet, there are changes on Main Street even if the most significant change has been gradual and is not immediately apparent — and that is the change in ownership of those stores on Main Street.
"I'll have to get back to you with the exact numbers," says Guillaume Lyrette, the recently elected president of the Richmond Chamber of Commerce. "We have about ninety members and most — but not all — of the town's merchants belong to the Chamber of Commerce. But in effect, many of the stores on Main Street are now owned and operated by women."
The presence of women merchants is a step in the evolution of a society that has changed significantly in terms of gender equality over the last several decades. Historians point to WWII as a key factor that led to women entering the workplace. When the men went off to war, workers were needed both in the fields and on the factory floor. When the men came home from the war, the women didn't necessarily want to give up their paycheques and the perks that came with their jobs. A quarter century later, what was called the Women's Movement formalized an acceptance of a new status quo; at least in theory an equal access to economic opportunity.
In some areas, as in some places, employment equality may have taken a little longer. Then again, in some areas, male to female ratios have now been totally reversed. For example, a generation ago, women principals were few and far between; today a list of principals from virtually every school board in the country will show a marked preponderance of women.
"Women have been competing with men on the job market for quite a while," Guillaume points out. "They may have started at the bottom — minimum-wage jobs on a shop floor, or a clerk behind a counter — but they realized that they could do as well as men. It was the next logical step to go from store clerk to store owner.
"For my part," he continues, "I'm glad to see women on Main Street. Women often tend to make things happen. They bring new ideas, and also a different attitude. They often have another set of values which go beyond the bottom line. They have to make money — every business does — but they don't make money their only consideration, or — at times — not even necessarily their primary one."
Guillaume concedes that Richmond's rue Principale is not an attractive street. "We are working at it," he states. "The Chamber of Commerce wants to work at making shopping in our own home town a reflex action. If more of us shop here, it will make it that much easier for shopkeepers to beautify their storefronts. The growing number of women owners will certainly help. Women often have a very good eye for detail, for making things more attractive."
Like all small towns, Richmond has been adversely affected by increasingly easy access to larger centres such as Drummondville and Sherbrooke. Accustomed as we are to overusing our cars, many of us have the reflex of ignoring the stores in our own towns and shopping farther from home.
"It's something that can change," Guillaume contends. By way of example he cites a local accountant who, until recently, always went to a large box store for all his stationery supplies. Today he buys the paper, pens, and ink cartridges he needs on Main Street in Richmond.
"He may spend a few cents more on certain items," Guillaume concedes, "but he is saving on gas and saving on time. Even items which might not be in stock in a small store can easily be ordered."
One of the many women merchants on Main Street is Michelle Nadeau who owns Papeterie 2000 Richmond. "If you're looking at women owners, I'm probably one of the senior members," she says with a smile as she starts her story.
"I was over fifty when I opened the store," she says. "I had no previous background in retailing but I sensed that running a stationery store was something that I could do. I knew a lot about office supplies because I had worked for sixteen years in the office of a notary, René Thibeault, who died prematurely (and who is remembered by the small urban park just north of where his office once was). I found work in a lawyer's office, but I discovered that there was quite a difference between the clients who went to see a lawyer and those who went to see a notary. I then went to work for another notary, but the office was in Sherbrooke, and after six months I just didn't want to keep doing the daily drive."
That was fourteen years ago. Today, Michelle has a junior partner — her daughter, Manon — and one employee. The store offers a number of services including printing. Business, Michelle will tell you, is good.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Richmond. Now & Then"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Nick Fonda.
Excerpted by permission of Baraka Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
FOREWORD,
INTRODUCTION,
The River,
PART 1 NOW: SNAPSHOTS OF RICHMOND,
CHAPTER 1 A Town in Troubled Times,
CHAPTER 2 Christmas on Main Street,
CHAPTER 3 The Women of Main Street,
CHAPTER 4 Gunter's The Office,
PART 2 THEN: EARLY EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT,
CHAPTER 5 Cushing Brook,
CHAPTER 6 The Denison Family,
CHAPTER 7 Daniel Thomas,
CHAPTER 8 Craig's Road,
CHAPTER 9 La Première Canadienne,
CHAPTER 10 Annance and the Disappearance of the Abenaki,
PART 3 FROM RIVER TO RAIL, MID-CENTURY TO THE GREAT WAR,
CHAPTER 11 Richmond and the Railway,
CHAPTER 12 Ephrem Brisebois and the Mounted Police,
CHAPTER 13 Remembering Father Quinn,
CHAPTER 14 The College and the Convent,
CHAPTER 15 John Hayes and the New Bridge,
Chapter 16 John Hayes, Part 2 Plus ça change,
CHAPTER 17 The Melbourne Township Murder,
PART 4 THE TWENTIETH CENTURY,
CHAPTER 18 The Native Son,
CHAPTER 19 The Desmarais Family,
CHAPTER 20 Alec Crabtree Booth,
CHAPTER 21 Who Was Johnny O. Toole?,
PART 5 TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY ECHOES,
CHAPTER 22 Jacques and the River,
CHAPTER 23 The Last Trapper,
CHAPTER 24 The New Age Forester,
PART 6 FACING THE FUTURE,
CHAPTER 25 Flirting with Fluoridation,
CHAPTER 26 The Last Word,
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS,
FURTHER READING,