Gaston DeSerres

Woodstock, Canada

1867-2017 My Story Gaston

(This is a real life ‘feel good’ story about some of the fantastic stories that have happened during the last 150 years in our great country of Canada.    It  shows how much people can be empathetic in times of difficulties.)

My story is about a brave and courageous woman, my mother Dorilla.!

Now in my senior years, I often reflect upon my mother, and the hardships she endured while raising a large family in the 1920s and 30s.  Financial, physical and domestic challenges few could understand today.  Her story and mine began in a small town of Tingwick, Québec.

In Tingwick, my mother would bear 11 children and lose 3. At hay harvest everyone had a lot of chores and my mother, Dorilla drove a horse drawn wagon full of hay.  One time the horses were frightened and they quickly took off in a hurry causing the wagon to turn over and my mother fell to the ground.  She was pregnant and the fall caused her to lose twin boys.  She also lost a baby girl during the Spanish flu epidemic following WW1.  

My father, Médard DeSerres worked for a contractor named Bergeron.  An asbestos mine nearby hired most of the town’s folks so there was a good demand for construction.  Unfortunately, the great depression started and lives changed.   The plant was affected.  People were laid off and without work.  Mr. Bergeron knew of a town along the St Lawrence  River that was prosperous. He decided to move to Cornwall and bring Médard, his best worker.  Dorilla’s family didn’t want her to follow her husband and even gave her a house to live in with her 7 children.  But love and her faithfulness to her husband were stronger.  The farm was sold and the family was separated in several relative homes. This was not a good situation and the decision was taken to join her husband  Médard in Cornwall.

 There was a celebration that fateful night in 1932.  The family had gathered together to celebrate a new ordained priest, Père Joseph.  They needed a ride to get to the train station, so Dorilla got her children and hastily went to the station nearly missing the train.   She got on the train with my six older sisters, Rose 14 years old, Laure 11, Réjeanne 9, Lucie 6, Fernande 4 and Marie just one year old.  When she went to pay, the conductor informed her that she didn’t have enough money for her and the 6 children.  Can you imagine how she felt!  Which one should she leave, impossible!  Many thanks for the good deed, the conductor allowed everyone on the train.  That conductor was a Godsend!

When they arrived in Cornwall, Ontario, they marvelled at all the water in the area. Silver Bridge, Cornwall Canal, the by-wash and the locks where boats would go through.  Their first house was on Race St.  right in front of the Cornwall Canal.  My mother used to sit near the water and watch the ships go by, this was her recluse where she would relax and find peace of mind.   My mother could not speak English and that along with my father’s unstable work caused anxieties. Money was scarce and life was difficult. My brother Fernand, who was 18 at that time,  hadn’t left with the family because he had to finish his job in Tingwick.  He joined the family in Cornwall as soon as the job was done..

 I, Gaston DeSerres was born two years later.  Our family was always a very close one and in spite of  financial problems we survived.  Potatoes and eggs were plentiful so we ate lots of them.  Buckwheat was also cheap so mom made very good Buckwheat pancakes.  Thank goodness for a close market called Lalonde’s Market, they allowed us credit .  My father had done some work for them and one Christmas they actually gave us a 45 pound turkey, which they probably couldn’t sell.  We had meat on our plate that year, but was it ever tough!  Mother avoided going into stores because there was no money for gifts.  One Christmas we all had oranges in our socks.  As a child, I remember walking along the train tracks with a burlap bag to pick up fallen coal pieces going to Lally-Munro Fuel.  On those nights we were warm.  We had lived in 9 different houses in the space of 9 years.  Good thing we could not be evacuated in the cold winter months.

 

In spite of such hardships, we were a very happy and close family and still are.  Our family got larger.    Fernand married Olive Pinard and had 8 children.  Rose married Joe St. Pierre and had 6 children and relocated to Longueuil, Quebec.  Laure married Raymond Burelle and she is still alive at 96 years old.  Réjeanne married Royal Beauregard and had 4 children.  Lucie married Stan Renaud and had 5 children and relocated to Windsor, Ontario.  Fernande married Arnold Fobert and had 4 children.  Laure and Fernande and the descendants of Fernand, Réjeanne and Marie are still living in Cornwall.  Marie married Maurice Labelle and they adopted 2 boys.  I married Theresa Lauzon and we have 3 daughters and relocated to Woodstock, Ontario.

If not for the help and generosity of a kind conductor this wonderful family would not have existed in this way, My story would have changed in many ways.  And many thanks also for a courageous small woman who was brave enough to leave her own family in Québec and venture into another beautiful province.

She left the world far too early in 1959,  but her legacy and love, live on in more than 150 descendants spread throughout Canada.  She taught us sacrifice and the strength of family, which to this day is still being passed down to future generations.

 

                                            

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