The Orphans

Thirteen months ago, when Mrs. Léger gave birth to her tenth child, a girl, she almost lost her life. Today her tiny little Dori, cuddled on her grandfather's lap, is weeping. She does not understand why her mother does not come when she calls her and why there are so many people around and hugging her tenderly when she is only longing for her mommy.

She does not know that this morning her mother, in the prime of her life, peacefully left this world. Alas, Dori will never remember her mother's smile, her embracing arms, her warm kisses, the color of her eyes or of her hair. She will never share, like most little girls do, intimate secrets with her mother. After awakening from her first nightmare, Dori will face her misfortune with a cast of players who will do their best to make the game of life as pleasant as possible for her, although the main character has been dismissed.

Similar thoughts were filtering through Delina's mind, little Dori's loving grandmother. She paused for a moment, leaning against the tall white kitchen stove, staring at the burning small birch logs, now in full process of accomplishing the dual role of heating the old farm house and cooking the family meal. The eyes of the septuagenarian filled with tears as her wrinkled hands covered her face. She repeated to herself the last words spoken to her on the previous day: "Mom, are you preparing food for my journey?" As ironic as it seemed at the time, for Laudia had been bedridden for a few days, now it was clear: Laudia had a premonition of her own death. "What a pity!" she exclaimed, startling her husband Marcel who was rocking little Dori. He was a kind and religious man and well respected in the community. He reached for his faithful wife's hand and, bringing it to his trembling lips, whispered: "Courage, Délina. Everything will be alright; we will take good care of the children." "Oh! the children. They have to be fetched from cousin Lionel's house; they do not know yet." On that comment, she signaled to her mate to bring the baby back to her crib.

Meanwhile, in the spicy, cold and wintry day, an echo could be heard from afar: "Easy, Big Tom. Easy, now." Although it was mid-April, the heavy-set horse was struggling to pull the red sleigh through the blizzard which hurled the snow fifteen feet into the air. The year was 1941; it marked another rigorous winter in Canadian history. Willie held the reins firmly in one hand while adjusting his warm handmade woolen hat over his ears with the other. Seated next to him was Amédée, a small nervous man, the new widower.

Although he had suffered a back injury in his childhood which had left him hunchback, Amédée always managed to provide for his family either by working on the family farm or as a door-to-door peddler. He was now lost in his thoughts, staring in the endless cloud of swirling snow that blanketed the fields ahead. With a heavy heart and teary eyes, he gave in to sorrow. "Why me, Lord? You took away six of my ten children in infancy; then my little three-year-old Oscar, who was my pride and joy. Now, my sweet Laudia. You know how much I loved my dear wife. Forgive me, Lord, for being so selfish. May your will be done." Wiping his tears with his thick gray mittens, and turning towards a third passenger sitting in the back of the spacious sleigh, he broke the morbid silence: "Are you alright, Father?" Father Gallant, clutching his precious black case in his gloved hands, nodded affirmatively. "I wonder if Amédée will keep the children", was on the pastor's mind. "He certainly has had his share of sorrow and pain in life. Dear God, please give him the grace and strength to keep his faith in You."

It was only two miles from Saint-Marcel to the rectory in Grande-Digue but on that day, to Willie, it seemed like an endless road. It was only the day before that, as a good neighbor, he had brought Doctor Dumont to the Léger's house. But today it was all over. Young Laudia's only surviving lung could not win the fight against that pneumonia. "She was much too young to die at thirty-six. And leaving a husband and three young children. What a shame; she loved life so dearly!" So were the thoughts on Willie's mind. "Whoa, Big Tom. Here we are." After helping the priest off the sleigh, Amédée mumbled: "Thank you, Father, for coming", to which the priest replied: "We will make the funeral arrangements tomorrow. Keep your courage, Amédée."

Willie and the forty-eight-year-old widower disappeared into the blizzard, now at its worse. At the Léger's house, a few neighbors and relatives had gathered as it is common in a small community to come together as one family. At the sight of her Papa, Dori hurried towards him, but precautious Grandma picked her up gently in her loving arms and said: "It is not healthy for you to go near Papa when he looks like a snowman right now."

The Early Years

1941 - 1950 Hermance, age eight; Ronald, aged six; and Dorice, thirteen months; all three orphans stayed at the homestead with Papa, Grandma Délina and Grandpa Marcel. He was the patriarch of the Léger family and also of the small quaint seaside village named after him. Saint-Marcel was a small community consisting of about twenty families, most of which were related, a small village in the parish of Grande-Digue in Southeastern New Brunswick, Canada, where you earn your bread by farming and fishing. I was a very small, frail child who adored her Grandpa and who was the apple of his eye. Grandpa was respected by the whole community as he was on the school board, was the tax collector, owned a large farm and helped everyone in need. Through the years many young men found work at Grandpa's farm.

My siblings and I were to call our father "Papa" per Grandma's order. Papa was semi-handicapped due to a hunchback condition, the cause of which is unknown to me to this day. He helped on the farm and, in the summertime, would become a seafood peddler to towns away from the seashore. Memramcook was one of those towns. It was where my favorite aunt Marguerite lived near the railroad tracks. My brother, sister and I took turns going on the thirty-mile trek with Papa to visit. I have always loved trains.

Grandmother Délina was a devoted mother to us three orphans: a diligent woman who had raised her own family of eleven. She knew hard work and she knew the joy of a house well kept. She made butter with the big old churn after separating the milk and the cream with the separator that was kept in the shed adjacent to the kitchen. Grandma made boudin (blood sausage) from fresh blood from the slaughtered hog. I can smell it and taste it now. Arthur was the hog slaughterer in our neighborhood. Grandma made my dresses cut and hand-sewn from pretty flour sacks. I loved them. She also made her own lye soap for laundry, to use on the scrub board. Although Grandma was always busy with household chores, she always found time to knit socks and mittens for us as well. And she was always ready to teach us good Christian living. Ever since I can remember, Grandma had vertigo and she staggered a lot. Whenever we, children would go to the seashore, which was within walking distance from our house, we would bring salt water from the sea for her to bathe her aching feet and legs.

Everyone called me la p'tite Dorice: Little Doris. I was always well treated as I was pitied for being an orphan. Sometimes Grandma threatened to send me to the gypsies if I misbehaved but Grandpa was always on my side. I was very tiny for my age and as a young child could fit between the legs of the kitchen stove. I would take winter naps there with my faithful companion Tom, my tiger cat, or my old teddy bear Brownie. I did not have many toys. What toys we did have were handmade. I remember my Grandpa had carved me a cone-shaped doll, which I liked. I would have to wait till I was about eight years old for a real doll, a doll given to me by my cousin Rita. Oh! How I loved that big doll ... so special to me. There were not many children to play with in our neighborhood besides my cousin Bernard and his sister Rachel, as we were close in age.

As in any normal childhood, there were mishaps. As a very young child, around two years old, I sustained a deep laceration on the right side of my throat from falling on a broken bottle near the bulkhead of our cellar. My brother claimed responsibility for that one. He was seven at the time. I still have a scar on my right chin. (As I grew taller the scar changed position.) To the best of my knowledge, there was no medical intervention; the cut healed naturally.

I never learned to swim due to an incident involving my brother and cousins pushing me out of a canoe when I was five years old. Even though it was in shallow water, it left me scarred for life. I am still afraid of water and to this day, this Pisces does not swim.

Our property had many attached buildings. Aside from the twelve-room family home, there was a woodshed which housed the out-house which was attached to the main house. An outside stairway led to the grainery above the shed. It was like an attic. That place was always interesting to me. There were four divided bins serving as grain storage for the cows' winter ration. There was also a makeshift altar which my brother used to pretend to celebrate mass for us. He loved to imitate people and did a good impersonation of our bishop Monsignor Norbert Robichaud. Ronald and cousins Lionel and Roger used this hideaway for smoking, practicing their singing and playing the guitar. I once kept a dead kitten there in a shoe box, embalmed with baby powder. I thought I could keep it forever until Papa found out and that ended that mourning period.

Among the other buildings on the property stood our very unusual barn which had a huge hay area with a pitchfork set up at the ceiling of the barn that could move bales of hay from one end of the barn to the second story mow. This was made possible with the help of a horse; and this was fascinating to me.

There was a small car garage which housed Papa's Model A Ford. My Papa had several cars through the years. I remember the Model A and the 1939 Plymouth.

Between two barns was the manure pit, a beneficial asset to the vegetable garden but a hazard to little children. My little brother Oscar died after complications from falling in that pit. There were stables and barns, a large hen house and a pigsty to house our horses, cows, chickens and pigs. There was also a rooster that enjoyed chasing me right to the kitchen door.

I loved that old homestead with its twelve-room farmhouse, its grain fields, its gardens and orchards.

In the summer of 1946 there was a great forest fire which started in the raspberry patch in our woods, apparently set by teenagers smoking. Raging flames came as close as one hundred yards from our barn. It was traumatic for a six-year-old. A lot of prayers were said and many gallons of water were used. To this day I do not recall seeing any firemen. There was tremendous damage to the forest, some cottages were destroyed but no family homes were burned and there were no fatalities. That summer also marked the year that my uncle Edouard, the prodigal son, returned home after going missing for over twenty years. Grandpa probed into his marriage status as he brought home a wife.

Grandpa was very protective of me and would not permit me to start school at age six like other children, in part due to my small stature and in part due to the distance to the school, just short of two miles. I would have walked to school by myself at times, as most of the other children were older than I was.

However, on May 1st, 1947, I started school as an observer (Papa was also on the school board) in the one-room schoolhouse managed by my father's cousin Évangéline Léger. About twenty-four pupils from grades one to four were taught in that school. The little schoolhouse had a pot belly stove in the middle of the classroom and that stove heated the school and was also used by the teacher for reheating lunches for the pupils before the noon hour. It was a different way of life in those days.

In September of 1947, at age seven and a half, I started first grade and met Paul Bourgeois, my rival for the next eight years. I was a fairly good student and Paul and I alternated for first place position with high averages. Oh! How I miss those report cards! Paul was a very intelligent boy from a large family and had a sibling in every grade. He became an educator and the author of nine historical manuscripts and of his autobiography. His literary collection is presently displayed at the little school, "la p'tite école", which is now a museum. In his middle years he also became a great runner and qualified to run the Boston Marathon in 1987.

Being one of the youngest girls in our neighborhood, I do not recall sharing the two-mile trek to school with many children in the winter. It was easier to walk in the fields than the roadway. Sleighs being our only mode of transportation in winter, there was no plowing of the roads. Our school year would extend from early September to June thirtieth, every year. July First was called Dominion Day, like our Fourth of July in this country. It is now called Canada Day.

Christmas at our house was quiet. A tree was cut from our woodland and decorated by us children with simple handmade ornaments. The presents were scarce: clothes, mittens, hair accessories. We had a special meal with Grandma's pies for dessert. Christmas Day was one of the rare occasions when we enjoyed certain foods that we now take for granted and have daily such as nuts, grapes and oranges. One Christmas night, upon returning from midnight mass with Papa, my brother and my sister, I was handed an orange by Grandpa and he told me that Baby Jesus had sent it to me. I must have been a good girl! My favorite cousin Emery felt pity for his little cousin and would send a gift at Christmas time when I was a bit older, like eight or nine. I received a large coloring book and crayons, a Parcheesi game and a sweater, a dark green cardigan. I was very grateful for all that attention.

My aunt Marguerite, Emery's mother, was my favorite aunt. She would come and visit on Sundays and bring a large bag of puffed wheat, which I still love to this day. She was Papa's sister and lived in the town where Papa was peddling seafood. Her daughter, cousin Rita, was the donor of my very first doll.

It was always an exciting time when Papa would get ready for his peddling trip. He would go to Cocagne, the next village, where he picked up the shellfish, mostly lobster, directly from the fishermen's boats. He cooked these poor creatures by immersing them in boiling water but prior to their sudden death, they were free to crawl on the floor, which scared me. They were then packed on ice in large metal coolers. Other shellfish such as clams, quahogs, mussels and oysters (my favorite!) were also available sometimes. Memramcook was the town about thirty miles away where my aunt Marguerite lived near the railroad tracks and where my father's customers were. My sister, my brother and I took turns accompanying our father on his peddling trips. We loved to pick cherries from my aunt's garden and get treats from the little corner store. But I particularly loved the trains speeding by my aunt's house, especially their loud whistle. Those are fond memories from my childhood.

On one cold February afternoon, upon my return from school, my dear eighty-year-old Grandpa was lying on the kitchen floor, paralyzed from a stroke. Grandma was waiting for Papa to return from getting firewood from our woodland area. Grandpa lay resting his head on a pillow. He was conscious but had difficulty speaking. On Holy Saturday, March 27th, 1948, my special Grandpa went to his reward. I was devastated. On his deathbed he had told me I should become a nun. That phrase was imprinted on my mind. I pondered those words in my heart and reviewed them in my mind frequently over the following ten years.

I missed my Grandpa. He had been a central influence on my young life. He had told me so many stories. Like the time, while away on business during a wintry night, he had to share a room with another gentleman. Being exhausted, he was soon sound asleep. In the middle of the night, he was awakened by the sound of prayers being recited in the room. To his surprise, a young woman was seated at a small table and was reading out loud from a book by the dim light of a lamp. When he realized the content of the prayers, he jumped out of bed and, wearing his white long johns, scared the woman, who ran towards the stairs and fell, fracturing her leg. Grandpa realized he was in a room with a dead man, and the lady thought she had seen a ghost.

My Grandpa told me, as I was too young to remember, about the summer evening when Henriette and Marie-Louise came to visit with their trainer. The two bear entertainers were part of a traveling show going from town to town. While their master slept in the house, the two stars stayed outside our kitchen door. I wonder if they were restrained. Those were the 1930s and 1940s.