Yes
it is nostalgia, but it’s also history
by
Robert LaFrance
For the next month at least, please
don’t ask my opinion of the Christmas-New Year season.
New subject: I mentioned in my last
column that my Facebook group “Old Photos of Victoria County, NB” had 1968
members in less than a year, and now we number over two thousand. Just think,
that’s more than the population of Kdursk, Poland. Who woulda ever thunk it?
I think one of my favourite stories
gleaned from the 800 or so photos on that FB group was that of Claude Knapp,
the remittance man who was thought to be the son of King Edward VII, Queen
Victoria’s son, and a housemaid on the Isle of Wight. He lived in the Red
Rapids area, and every month he received a very large cheque from England and
lived the life of an English gentleman. He was a great golfer and played on the
Armstrong course, just upriver from where Hotel Dieu of St. Joseph Hospital is
today. Sewell Shaw of Andover used to caddy for him. Here’s part of what Sewell
said about Claude Knapp:
“He was about 13 or 14 when
they shipped him out here to Canada. He lived with the Suttherys until he was
old enough to go on his own and then he took off. He always drove a big car, he
always had lots of beautiful clothes, played golf.
“He was an excellent athlete. He was
over in Caribou celebrating the 4th of July – an Englishman
celebrating the 4th of July – and he had one of these big 6-inch
firecrackers in his hand. He lit it and he held it too long and it went off. He
lost his thumb and those two fingers. All he had on this left hand was like a
claw. But he played golf with one arm. He hit the golf ball with one arm and by
God he played a good game of golf. He would win as much as anyone around the
club there, other than the pro. He was a great tennis player, the runner-up to
the champion of New Brunswick at one time in a tournament held down in Saint
John. And a pool player, my God, he’d go over there and play pill pool – I
probably was one of the players too – and he could really play pool.”
There are dozens of other stories
that this Facebook group have brought to light, and the photos from a century
ago really put this area’s history into perspective. There are photos of that
Perth golf course I mentioned, of Issie Vinegar’s store which, among many other
buildings, burned in 1977, of the Perth riverbank buildings that were either
moved out of there or demolished in the mid-1950s, and other photos from all
over the area.
I borrowed dozens of photos from
Peter DeMerchant of Tobique Narrows, some given to him by Gail and Jim Pickett
of Andover, and Doreen Roach of Aroostook also lent me dozens showing people
and places from Aroostook. Kip Demmings and Alton Morrell have many dozens of
photos of Aroostook, Andover and Perth (the last two became Perth-Andover in
1966) and others keep sending in photos that they didn’t realize were historic.
A couple of weeks ago I posted a
photo that showed a kind of car I didn’t recognize – along with some people, a
house, a dog and what looked like a goat. Within minutes Joe Knowles was
posting that the car “looks similar to a British made car called a
Prefect, which was popular here in the mid 40's to early 50's…” and apparently
that’s exactly what it was. I learn something every month or two.
I
posted one 1956 photo that showed my late mother Marjorie (Schriver) LaFrance as she
was pouring pancake batter onto a hot griddle while my sister Joan and my
father Fred looked on. The photo was taken at our Tilley family home in 1956. Mum (1906-1961) could
sure cook pancakes, and her baked beans were the best. Just like mother used to
make, as a matter of fact.
The Facebook site is full of old
memories, and many of them involved the legendary teacher Miss Sara Williams,
whom I mentioned before. After mother died when I was 12, Miss Williams was
very kind to me and I’ll never forget her, but the point is, the FB group let
many dozens of people write in to share memories of that great lady, who was as
tough as nails. And stubborn! When the staff of Victoria Glen Manor were
preparing some sort of celebration for Miss Williams’s 100th
birthday, she must have known what was going on and died five days before that
event.
I posted one photo showing Hotel
Dieu of St. Joseph in the 1970s and close to 90 people posted comments about
memories associated with the structure. Across the street was Ann’s Hotel and
there were 125 comments about that. Many people don’t realize or remember than
Ann’s Tea Room near the hotel had been moved across the street and became the
Hotel Dieu.
It’s not just nostalgia, it’s
history.
-end-
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