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KINUSO, LESSER SLAVE LAKE
My grandmother was very unhappy in Kinuso. She didn't like her sister-in-law and was unhappy about the growing debt the family owed at the general store. She thought my grandfather was capable of working in an office, but he didn't have confidence in his English which he had learned in Belgium (the family spoke French).
In 1919, when the children were five, six and seven years old, the parents were forced to take work at a lumber mill in Chisholm, northwest of Athabasca. My grandfather worked as a bookkeeper and my grandmother, a cook. Because the mill had no facilities for families, the children were taken to a convent in Grouard. My father never mentioned the convent. My aunt Jacqueline, however, has said it was quite horrific, obviously because of the separation from their parents, but also because of the unkind treatment they received from the nuns.
We don't know how long this period lasted. Finally, my grandmother decided to leave on her own or possibly with the children. She went to Lacombe near Red Deer to work as a maid. Fortunately, my grandfather went after her and agreed to move to Edmonton where he got a job as a writer for a small French language newspaper called La Survivance. I estimate that the move took place between 1922 and 1925.
In 1914, English was the fourth most common language in Edmonton, after French, Cree and Gaelic. Copies of La Survivance were digitized at the University of Alberta because of their importance as historical documents.
Pictured in the photos are my father in the front row bottom right with his Grade 8 Class; with friends at Moose Lake, his sister, Jacqueline, on the right; a copy of La Survivance; my father, his brother Albert and their dog.
EARLY LIFE
My father was reserved and also reticent about personal things. He had a stoical approach to life. In his view, people should tough it out during difficult times. Display of strong emotion or "showing off" to him would be inappropriate. He hated irresponsibility and had even higher expectations of himself than of others. Though he was a kind and sympathetic person, he rarely expressed affection and was hard to get close to. For example, I can't remember him ever telling me something of a personal nature about his childhood. He took his responsibility as a father very seriously, but in today's terms, would have been considered very old-fashioned.
I have very little first-hand knowledge of my father's early life. From my mother I know that for a long time the family lived largely on fish they caught in Lesser Slave Lake, located north of Edmonton and east of Grande Prairie. For the rest of his life my father refused to eat fish. On the positive side, he had a lifelong love of the outdoors and of the North. The family's financial misfortune and the Great Depression which began when he was 17 years old help to explain his frugal life style and his refusal to take on any debt except for a mortgage.
The photos are of Lesser Slave Lake in northern Alberta and my father with his tent.
HOMESTEADING IN FORT SASKATCHEWAN
Homesteading turned out to be a financially disastrous venture. Because they knew nothing about farming, the family hired people to do the work. According to my mother, they also enjoyed lengthy visits at Edmonton hotels and regarded themselves as the Canadian version of landed gentry. The result was that they soon ran out of money. In 1909, my great-grandfather became ill and with two of his children and their spouses returned to Belgium. My grandparents remained in Canada, and were poor - very poor at first until their situation gradually improved.
After my great-grandfather's return to Belgium, my grandfather and his sister with their spouses moved to Kinuso on Lesser Slave Lake. I'm not sure how long they remained in northern Alberta before moving to Edmonton. My guess from dated photos is that it would be around 1926. During that time, farming efforts remained unsuccessful and there was increasing indebtedness. There is no doubt they suffered hardship: two of their children died, their first son, Jean, as an infant; and their daughter Jeanne from what sounds like pneumonia at the age of ten. On the other hand, their daughter, Jacqueline, became a school teacher, their sons John and Albert both became engineers. They had ten healthy grandchildren, and, most important of all, their three children who survived to be adults were all very fine people.
My grandfather is on the left in the photo. It was taken in the Belgian Congo some time between 1906 and 1908.
