Késsinnimek - Roots - RacinesMon Petit Coin by Norm Léveillée
Harris Village
Memories in a Franco-Canadian-American Institution
Last month, I wrote about the Christmas and New Year holy day celebrations. I mentioned that I had lived in Harris Village, situated in the towns of Coventry, Cranston and West Warwick in the state of Rhode Island. Harris Village was one of many small villages situated along the Pawtuxet River where textile mills flourished during the latter part of the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries. Most of the villages were of ethnic origins: Arctic and Centreville for the French-Canadians, the Irish and Scotch; Riverpoint for the Portugese-Americans, Natick for the Italian immigrants. Most of the people, men, women and children, worked in the textile mills built by the English along that river. This was not unique to this region but common to many other New England towns. I will concentrate on the village where I was born and lived for 26 years.
Harris village, surrounding the textile, was founded towards the end of the 19th century by the English owners of Interlaken Mills to receive the French-Canadian immigrants from the province of Québec who came to work in the textile mills along the Pawtuxet River. Many of the men of these families came here first to secure work in the mills, either in the various machinery rooms or as yardmen. These men stayed here for several months, even a year at times, to establish a home for their families. Then, with a rental house and a secure job, they brought their family to this village. Eventually, a priest from Québec immigrated and the families built a church for their pastor and for themselves. I lived at 74 Mill Street. My room was located on the upper floor on the right of the photo.
Such was the case with my family and my relatives. The families of Léveillée, Bélanger, Massé, Théroux, Morin, Chatelle, Chaput, Martin, Collard, Blanchette, Gervais were those with whom we associated. They came from Québecois villages such as St-Aimé, St-David, St-Michel, St-Robert, St-Nazaire ... Most of the 25 plus families in this village were all related. If I did something wrong on the western side of the village, by the time I got home on the eastern side, my mother already knew what I had done. There were no secrets here. It was really one big family - happy, most of the time.
I remember that there were two other families of a different ethnic origin than the Franco-American families. The adults thought that these people were different. However, we children did not see any differences in Anthony, Teresa, Rosemarie, Eddy ... Even though they did not go to the local parochial school like we did, they were our friends. We played with them every day.
Thinking about "playing", there was a game that we enjoyed tremendously. We played it all summer. It was called "peggy-stick". We created the "peg" by cutting about 5 inches off of an old broomstick and sharpening both ends. We then used the rest of the broomstick as the "bat". The "peg" was placed in a circle and the "batter" hit one of the pointed ends of the "peg". As it flew upwards, the batter tried to "bat" the peg the farthest. The one who hit the "peg" the farthest 11 or 21 times was declared the winner. Another version was to use this "peg" and "bat" to play a "peg baseball" game. We had a team of batters and a team of fielders; there were a home base and three other bases. The rules of baseball applied: strikes, outs, runs etc. We played this year-round, as long as there was no snow.
I remember my "mémère Mélina (Bélanger)". She loved her grandchildren. But there were two of her favorites: my cousin Joe or Junior and me. During springtime, when the wind was especially strong, she would make kites for us, out of saplings and newspaper. She made her own glue. I wish that I remembered what she used; it was white and lumpy. Both of us watched, most of the time impatiently, as she put the sticks and paper together very patiently. She added a long tail from scraps of cloth which she saved from her sewing. When she finished the kites, she proudly gave one to each of us. We hurried outside, behind her house and promptly ran up and down to get our kites into the wind. While we were doing this, I noticed that "Mémère" was watching us through the parlor window. She had the biggest smile on her face. During one season, she must have repaired or remade our kits at least three dozens times. Each time one broke, one of us ran into her house, and there on the kitchen table, she would take out her tools of the trade: newspaper, sticks, glue, scraps of cloth. She would begin anew to satisfy the needs of two of her grandchildren.
The summer was our best time. Baseball, of course, occupied most of every day when we were not doing chores. As I mentioned in the last article, my father and my uncle Joseph Léveillée, the oldest of the Léveillée sons, had a huge garden. You can guess who did most of the weeding: all the sons and nephews of the Léveillée clan. This was man's work; therefore the female cousins could come and help harvest the fruit and vegetables, but could not "weed".
Let me get back to baseball. For us, at that time in the late 30's, 40's and early 50's, Ted Williams, Dom DiMaggio, Joe Cronin, Bertie Tebbets of the Red Sox, Joe Dimaggio of the Yankees were the baseball players we emulated. I had several small bats with their autographs; and baseballs and gloves also. I was very young, but I remember Ted Williams' first game at Fenway. In any case, we had our own pick-up teams, mostly formed by families in the village. We had a small field in back of my maternal grandparents' home. A homerun was easily accomplished since the woods at the end of the field were a mere 100-150ft from home plate. However, one had to hit into the woods on the fly for a homerun; otherwise it was a ground-ruled double.
We did have a regulation playing field up the hill past Harris Street and Highland Avenue. It was there that the adults played baseball most evenings and especially weekends. The teams were named Notre-Dame, our church group, Phenix Sportsmen's Club, the Portuguese-American Club, Interlaken Mills team, the Hope team. The men played both hardball and softball. We children did also, but usually during the day in summer. My father had organized a youth league, which could have been the precursor to the Little League Organization of later years. Several of the parishes in the area had put together teams. There was a league during the late springtime and all summer. We even had a "World Series" at the end of the season just before school started.
One of the summer activities also was to visit the local farmer "Cleaf". We would work for him for 10 cents a day, weeding, cleaning the barn, picking fruit and vegetables during harvest time. Some of us would accompany him on his "milk routes" since many of the villagers bought their milk from him. He would let one of us lucky "kids" drive his milkwagon. The other milkman was Mr. Justin DeGraide, a Belgian immigrant who had a big farm across the river and up the hill. It was in the pond on this DeGraide farm that my maternal uncles Léo and Edouard Bélanger used to take me, in the evening, to fish for "bullheads", which I later found out were really fresh-water catfish. I remember worrying about the bull in the pasture as we crossed it to get to the pond. We used hand lines with several hooks and sinkers at the end. This line was heaved out about 30-50 feet into the pond. In no time, the fish would bite and at times we would haul in two and three at a time. We would return home with a basket full of fish. One of my chores the next day was to gut and clean the fish. I knew that this cleaning would be blessed with one of my mother's famous "bullhead chowder", the fish slowly boiled in a rich, thick cream.
The fall season appeared to be the time for harvest. Many of us had to work in the gardens, picking fruit and vegetables. At least the weeding was over - that was a blessing for many of us. But digging for potatoes, carrots, beets, radishes and other root vegetables was not one of our favorite activities. In our home, harvest time also meant "canning" the produce for winter use. My mother would spend hours in the pantry preparing the vegetables, which she would slowly boil on the stove in the kitchen. Then these would be put in canning jars, which she then placed in boiling water, then taken out and placed in cold water to seal the caps. These preserves were enjoyed throughout the winter. Actually work was not one of our favorite thing. We preferred to play.
During the winter season, it seems, as I can recall, that the snow fell in November and stayed on the ground until the beginning of March. The Massé family, cousins of ours, like most of the other families in Harris Village, had a huge toboggan that could hold ten people. We would climb up Harris Street to the very top of the hill, past the junction of North Pleasant and Harris Streets. From there, we would discuss who was going to steer the toboggan - usually one of the older children. Ten of us would climb aboard. The rest of the gang would push us to get a good, fast start. And away we went sailing down Harris Street, passing most of our homes, the north side of the Interlaken Mills and stopping just short of Main Street. Those not fortunate enough to ride the big tobaggan sled down the hill on their own Yankee Clippers.
Since my father drove a truck for the mill, it was his job to plow the street when it snowed. He did a great job, being out at all hours of the night doing his plowing. However, there was one street that he never did clean very well. You guessed it! Harris Street. He always left a couple of inches of snow. The way the homes were situated on that street, every driveway was reachable by another street except one - Mr. Field's house. As soon as Mr. F came home from work, he would spread ashes, from his wood stove, over that section of Harris Street that led into his driveway. And, as soon as he was back in the house, our Harris gang would promptly cover the ashes with snow. After a while, there was a beautiful bump there which allowed our toboggan and sleds to fly up and over.
The closest pond to Harris Village was located across the Pawtuxet River. It was there that we went skating: the girls for figure skating; the boys for the more manly game of hockey. For some reason, I was always chosen as goalie. I wonder if the reason was that I could not skate very well. After all, one can not skate very quickly on the sides of the skates instead of on the blades! But the game of hockey went on at a furious pace. Oftentives, we completely forgot about lunch, arriving at home to the reception of a stern look from our mothers for having been late.
In the springtime, the cycle began once again with our favorite activities, to be continued into the summer, fall and into winter.
I have very fond memories of my early years in Harris Village. Occasionally, I meet with some of my friends and cousins. We reminisce about the "les bons vieux temps" - "good old times". Actually, I'm not so sure now that they really were "good old times", since most of our activities revolved around work. I guess we really want to remember just the "play" activities. These were "les bons vieux temps" - "good old times" for us children.
Amitiés & Zôbi Widôbaid & Métañdossañtz8añgan & Nidi-nwendaginag,
Norm
Késsinnimek - Roots - Racines
Copyright © 2003 & 2004 Norm Léveillée
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Created 1 Feb 2003