Alexandre ARBOUR

1878 - 1953  (75 ans)

• Nom	Alexandre ARBOUR
  Naissance	5 juil 1878	Sheenboro,,Outaouais,Québec,Canada,
  Genre	Masculin
  Décès	24 déc 1953	Renfrew County,,,Ontario,Canada,Chalk River
  _CREA	17 sept 2023
  _FIL	LEGITIMATE_CHILD
  ID personne	I1177	Arbour-Pierre1615
  Dernière modif.	16 sept 2023

  
  

  Père	Andre ARBOUR,   n. 14 nov 1832, Québec,,Lanaudière,,Canada,Saint-Paul,J0k 3e0 d. 28 jan 1915, Greater Sudbury,,,Ontario,Canada,Sudbury (Âgé de 82 ans)
  Mère	Catherine LA PLANTE,   n. vers 1854   d. 9 avr 1889, Sheenboro,,Outaouais,Québec,Canada, (Âgé de 35 ans)
  Mariage	17 jan 1872	Québec,,Outaouais,,Canada,[Église de Chapeau Outaouais,Canada] - Chapeau,J0x 1m0
  _CREA	21 août 2024
  _UST	MARRIED
  ID Famille	F286	Feuille familiale  |  Tableau familial

  
  

  Famille	Lucie CUSSON,   n. 5 avr 1888, Renfrew County,,,Ontario,Canada,Point Alexander d. 20 mai 1929, Renfrew County,,,Ontario,Canada,Rolph Township (Âgé de 41 ans)
  Mariage	11 oct 1904	Renfrew County,,,Ontario,Canada,Pembroke
  _CREA	21 août 2024
  _UST	MARRIED
  Enfants	+ 1. Alexander ARBOUR,   n. 24 août 1905, Renfrew County,,,Ontario,Canada,Point Alexander d. 10 août 1981, Ottawa,,,Ontario,Canada,Carleton County (Âgé de 75 ans)   2. Adelard ARBOUR,   n. entre 1906 et 1928   d. après 1970 (Âgé de > 65 ans) + 3. Lawrence Eugene ARBOUR,   n. 15 avr 1911, Renfrew County,,,Ontario,Canada,Point Alexander d. 6 mars 1955, Renfrew County,,,Ontario,Canada,Chalk River (Âgé de 43 ans) + 4. Ernest Willard ARBOUR,   n. 24 juin 1917, Renfrew County,,,Ontario,Canada,Chalk River d. 8 juil 1980, Ottawa,,,Ontario,Canada,Carleton County (Âgé de 63 ans) > 5. Annie May ARBOUR,   n. 26 déc 1922, Renfrew County,,,Ontario,Canada,Chalk River d. 7 mars 1995, Renfrew County,,,Ontario,Canada,Deep River (Âgé de 72 ans)   6. Romeo Narcisse ARBOUR,   n. 23 août 1926, Renfrew County,,,Ontario,Canada,Buchanan Township d. 21 oct 2001, Vancouver,,,British Columbia,Canada, (Âgé de 75 ans)
  ID Famille	F285	Feuille familiale  |  Tableau familial
  Dernière modif.	21 août 2024

  
  

• Carte d'événements

  Mariage - 11 oct 1904 - Renfrew County,,,Ontario,Canada,Pembroke Décès - 24 déc 1953 - Renfrew County,,,Ontario,Canada,Chalk River  = Lien Google Earth

  
  

• Notes

  I was told that Lucy had died in childbirth. My mother also told me that Father Hogan once said that Lucy deserved sainthood for staying married to Alexander, who apparently was NOT a nice person.My aunts and uncles throughout the years said much the same. According to the 1901 Census, Alexander was born on 10 Jun 1876. Accordingto Sharon WATSON ARBOUR, Alexander was born in Chalk River, Renfrew Co, ON. ARBOUR, AlexAtomic Energy of Canada Ltd. Renfrew Buchanan UOVGG-C.35.9 ___ From "A Whispered History: The Early Days of Buchanan Township" http://bright-ideas-software.com/WhisperedHistory/settlers.html FIGHTING FOR & AGAINST THE LANDIN BUCHANAN TOWNSHIP [Elizabeth Bond] During the 1830s, as the square timber business was being drawn further up the Ottawa River in search for large white pines to ship to Europe, timbermen began settling on plots of landalong the river's shores.These men and their families would come from New England or New France, and were for the most part wholly unprepared for the rough conditions that they would face. The settlers would come with the spring thaw and begin by building a basic shelter andbarn to have shelter for the upcoming winter, and perhaps clearing a small area of forest for a garden. Themen, and often young boys, would leave their farms in late fall and labor in the lumber camps untilthe spring when the logs were ready to bedriven down the Ottawa River to Quebec City. Fortunate men would be asked to stay on for the spring drive which paid quite well because it was dangerous work. At the end of their work term, the men would be paid for their season's work and would return to their small farms with supplies. The early settlers soon learned that the agricultural conditions inBuchanan were far from ideal. Much of their acreage was either swampy or sandy; thearable soil that they did possess was incredibly rockyand contained old growth forest that needed to be painstakingly cleared at a rate of about an acre a year. Large stone piles scattered densely across Buchanan today attest to the backbreaking work that went in to turning forest into fields. Still,itwas a worthwhile exercise for the earlysettlers to attempt to farm their land in order to support their families. Supplemental cash income could be made after 1854 by sellingfirewood to the passing steamboats carrying freight and passengersup theOttawa River between Pembroke and Des Joachims. In many cases, this small extra income made a great difference to the struggling families. Also, for those lucky enoughto getahead, the logging camps would purchase surplus stores of food and hay from nearby farmers and this would provide anextra income. The original Law farm, located on the rise above the lighthouse, was one such depot farm. The early settlers and the area FirstNations seemed to have gotten alongquite well. The white settlersrespected the Natives who had the knowledge and skills to survive in their shared harsh surroundings. Both groups of people were anxious to learn fromeachother, and within a generation white settlers and Native inhabitants were living asneighbors.As Buchanan turned into a growing community during the mid-nineteenth century, centralized government administration in Upper Canada had a hard time keeping up. Plots of land were notformally surveyed until many years after it was settled, andland disputes had to be settled in informal ways. Gerald retells a story passed on to him about a boxing match that took place between Joseph Nadeauand Baptiste Leduke with a referee and in front of a crowd of people, so that the results of thecontestwould be binding as witnessed by the community in lieu of legal papers. Gerald recalls another account of unofficial justice in theearlydays of settlement. An unintentional manslaughtertook place in the mid-1800s at Foran's Stopping Place, one of2 hotels located in Buchanan Township. Innkeeper Patty Foran's wife subdued a rowdy patron with a candlestick over thehead.The troublemaker was put outside, where he was forgotten about and froze to death. It was decided that Pat would take responsibility for the death. The next time a traveling judge came up the river, Pat presented himself at a place referred to asCourt Island. He was sentenced to two years of prison in Ottawa. Pat paddled the judge back to Ottawaon his way to serve his sentence. An account of this happening was recorded in The Ottawa Journal in April1925 in an article entitled"Old Time Stuff." EARLY FARMING IN BUCHANAN TWP [Gerald Nadeau] "They cleared some of theroughest land that you could possibly attempt to work with, for some reason. I guess it was becauseit was close to the river and they didn'twant to go anyfurther away because their workplace was the river. So youhad to make your garden behind your house - if it meant moving stones thatwhatyou'd do, a lot of stones. And most of these little farms only had two cows or three, apig - in fact, the early people didn't even keepa dog, because it was a waste of food. And I don't know if they kept a cat or not; I imagine thatthey didn't even have one of those. You needed very little. The little rough patches of cleared land seemed togivethem a bare amount of agriculture required to keep afamily. And that meant if the man went in to make square timber or hew timber fora lumber company, his wife would have to stay home, feed the cow, or cows, and she would be responsible forlooking after whatever gave them milk for their family. I never heard of people having chickens, real early. And they kept a pig, but the pig was only kept in summer because in winter, it was the winter's food. But thoselittle farms seemedtogive enough foodfor a cow, and enough turnips and potatoes for a family to use becauseeverybody seemed to have a root cellar, so that meant that they were growing enough to keep, to have a storage to put it in. But the men who workedin thesquare timber business seemed to make enough money that thespending of a family might be a hundred dollars in a year, maybe not much more. But it was only the very necessary things that you had to buy, which was probably tea,sugar,cloth or possibly needles, thread, just the most bare things that a householdwould need. You wouldn't be putting curtains on windows or things of that nature. And you might buya potor pan or two, if you had extra money. Ora pane ofglass for yourwindows. I guess in those days if youhad to buy this you'd have to bring it allthe way up the river. When the men would return from the rafting, they used to come by canoe. They hadan outfit called a stage that used tocome overlandbetweenone watercourse and another, so that they'd come up through let's say Fitzroy Harbour, and then they'd have a stage to wherever the next point was. So it would take probably 6 to 10 days tocome from Quebec City to the OttawaValley. So you'dhave to carry and canoethe purchases you made, and bring those home. You couldn't spend a lotof money because you couldn't carry home a great deal. The little bit of land along with the work they did was enough to raise a family inthose conditions." RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NATIVES & WHITE SETTLERS IN BUCHANAN [Gerald] "The Natives and the people when they first came here, they seemed to be dependent on each other. Because they depended on the Natives tolearnthethings the natives knew and sometimes, to get help from the Natives. And the Natives never seemed to feel that they were less important than the white people because they needed each other for the same reasons. The Natives made ..for sickness. Somebody would go to one of those native women, the older women, and they would get cures made up for what they had. If you wanted snowshoes, you had to go to the Natives to get them, because they could tan the hides, andif youwanteddeerskin mitts, you'd have to go to a Native again.And if you wanted help and the Native was your only neighbour, if you could work the way that the Native wanted to work, you could get him to help you. That meant he would come when it suited him, not when it suited you. They were able to live together quite well. I'll show you later the rocking chair this old girl used to sit on. She said that when she was just a small girl, her mother had two cows, and she used to make butter, and in thespringtime when the grass was good and the cows wouldmilk better she'd have extra butter, and some days there'd be 20 canoes coming down the [Ottawa] River, atone time in one group. And all the women would be paddling, and all the small kidshad a little paddle, and she said she'd see all the littlefaces along the gunnels of the canoe, wanting to see the white people because some of them had never seen white people. They'd all get lined up and peekover the top of the canoe.And then they'dcome in, and the menwould get out in the water, about waist deep. They'd come in, and someof them had been there before, and they'd want to buy butter. She'd have the butter in wooden bowls, and they'd take the butterdownon therocks,and they'd eat the butter just like candy, with their hands. Yep, butterto them was like candy. But the men were the only ones who got the butter, because the women and the small children stayed in the canoe with the dogs. And she said they usedto be going to Ft William and the smoke would be so heavy from so many campfires, it was just like a fog, up inthe trees. And everybody came with whatever dogs they had left fromthe year before, and they turned them all loose. The dogswould fight and they'dbreed, they'd bark and they'd run, it was a holy terror the firstweek when they'd all come in. The women would fish and cook and themen would sleep most of the summer. And every day the priest would sayamass and he'dhaveto be paidfor it. So this was howthey got the money from the Natives. If somebody had died in the bush the year before, youcould have a mass said for them even though they were buried out in the bush where you'd never seethemagain. But they were then taught that this new religion, you could just request and the guy was in heaven as soon as the mass was finished. So a lot of them were, how would you put it, taken? Because their beliefs werejust aboutas sound as what they were being taught. Then in the fall they said that they were down there one time and this guy had a young familyandhis wife had died in the bush and he had spent the summer in Fort William. And they were ready to go back up to I guess Kippawa orTemagami or Temiskamang maybe, but he had tohave amother for those children. Because a man alone couldn't lookaftersmall ones in the bush. So one of the guys had a daughter who wasn't married, and Ithink you could picture somebody being maybe a little on the slow side, or god knows why. But it didn't matter. When the bargain was made between the man who losthis wife and the father who hadthis girl who was not yet married, she would be up going with thisother family when the fall came. So they happened to be there the time thatthe father brought the girl down to get her married by the priest who wasthere. And it took two of them to hold her while the marriage was goingon. Shecouldn't speak no English butthe father knew a little, and the old fella told me the words he said: Whateverher name was, he used her name, and he said you're going to marry untoone Joe Mackenzie.Joe Mackenzie was the native who had lost his wife and had the small children.So when the ceremony was over, it was legal. They put her inthe canoeand pushed out, and that was it. It was survival at a time when he could have losthis small kids if he went into the bush withno one to care for them. It's a strange thing when you think back but when you see today's world, you know, how often doyou see separations and other things which don't work." EARLY STEAMBOATS BROUGHT EXTRA INCOME [Gerald] "Most of those steamboats were puton there for a money making business. And they charged peoplefor freight and passengers both. The freight came from Pembroke, because the railroad only came as far as Chalk River. The steamboat had a crew ofsometimes up to six and eight people. Some had acook. There was deck hands, generally four. There was a pilot who knew the [Ottawa] River, and a Captain. And there were always a couple of extras who were keptto fill in different jobs. They were steam and had boilersand usedwood. And the wood was bought from the farm people and bush workers who lived along the River. But youhad tohave a wharf to putyourwood on, or else share your wharf with your neighbour. And this was where the trouble always started with selectingthe land along the River. Some people liked to get their sons side by side, so that they could sharethe same wharf. Because thewharfwasthen your job. If you could put wood on the wharfyou got cash money for it, so anybody that was fortunate enough to have a wharf location would be like today having a gas station on a busy corner. The deck hands wheeled the wood in and they wheeled it in on wheelbarrows, and came down the ramp and dumped it into the hull, and theycould takea quarter cord in today's measurement of wood on a wheelbarrow. And then dump it down the hole in the hull that was cut to put the wood in, and then theboiler man had access to that wood from below deck.And one of the most disgraceful things that could ever happen to a deck hand was that he couldn't handle his load when he got down to the hole in the deck and the wheelbarrow would go down into the hull and he'dbe cursed forever for that." FIGHTING FOR LAND IN BUCHANAN [Gerald] "Andwhat happened was, poor old Joe wanted to get the piece adjoining to the one he had already got, sohis two sons could liveside by side. Ofcourse, Baptiste[Leduke] wanteda piece of that, and he didn't want thedunes. The sand dunes were worthless, as far as growing anything. So, someone said 'OK, you two guys are pretty good defendersof your rafts. Let's see which one of you will get thepiece of land.' This was a fair competition between people who did notdislike each other. It was a physical-what would we say-test in asense, but not in an angry way. Just as two wrestlers might compete, and when it'sover they shake hands and thewinner takesthe purse, you know? So this is how that was done. It wasn't done in asense of anger, no.Isidore Richard was the referee for fair play at this meeting. I suppose they would just have a piece of ground that would be big enough thatthey wouldnot haveroom to move, and of course the families of bothwould as today's ball games go, cheer for the side you wanted to win. And the old fella that I got this story from said his father had told himabout thegoings onat this meeting, and Mrs. Baptistewasrunning around in circles around the outside telling him in French to 'Hit hard, hit hard!' because he wasn't hitting hard enough. And she knew the outcome was not going to be good. " WOMEN OF CHARACTER [Elizabeth] As women followed theirhusband's into the Upper Ottawa Valley beginningin the 1830s, they met extreme hardshipsthat their upbringings in settled New England or New France never could have prepared them for. Survival alone proved to bequite a challenge,and raising a familywas even more difficult. Elizabeth Leroy (nee Baines) was the first female settler in Buchanan Twp. She came with her husband Simon Leroy, a skilled square-timber hewer and a former UnitedEmpire Loyalist. Previously, Elizabeth was aschoolteacher in NewEngland. Sheopened theupper floorof her house as the first school in Buchanan, andher own daughters were among the first students. This employ kept her busy during the cold months of the yearwhen her husband was working in the lumber camps furtherback in the bush. It is hard to imagine what difficulties the wives of the lumbermen had to face while their husbands were away. They were left alone to care for the children, tend to the animals, and keep a fire stoked. Their nearest neighbors were a difficult winter's walk away, and perhaps loneliness was as harsh as the cold. When one hears the anecdote about Mrs. Richard, wife of one of the earliest French settlers in Buchanan, outin the middleof the night chasingafter a bear because ithad grabbedthe family swine, one can begin to imagine the courage and determination required by these early female settlers. While all of the wives of lumbermen were virtually single parents fromautumn to springeach year,they couldtake somesolace inthe fact thattheir husbands would return when the river ice broke up, and that theywould bring household supplies and money (if they hadn't spent it all at Stopping Places along the way). However, the lumber business was dangerous and the widowsof the lumbermen killed on the job could count on no such support. The story of widow Emmy Chequen, who was left to raiseher seven children on a miniscule monthly allowance, highlights how tragedycould strike downa family and only strength ofcharacter could pullthe women through. Women often had to seek ways to supplement their household income. During prohibition, Buchanan also was rich with headstrong women who made sought-after whiskey. Rosina Brunelle was one of thebest-known brewers inthe township. She was a tiny French Canadian lady who used to ride a bicycle on a high wire at the Quebec Midway before coming to the Valley. Another favoritewhiskey maker wasMrs. Bob Chequen,Emmy's sister-in-law. Once,when caught by the authorities with a washtub full of peeled potatoes out behind the barns, she made the excuse that her ill sow's digestive system couldn't handlethe peels and was let off the hook.Perhaps themost impressive womento have graced Buchanan Township was ViolaMcCarthy (nee Blimkie). Viola was born on a farm in Buchanan, and as a young bride of 19 she took over the mail-delivery contract that her husband could no longer carry out.Viola delivered the mail to the 37 families in Buchanan throughout the year andin all weather. She used horse and cutter in the winter months, surmounting incredible drifts of snow that madereaching each homestead a challenge. She helped uneducated residents to readtheir letters and write responses. She often gave residents lifts to the main road, and during WWII when gas and tires were rationed she acted as ambulance. Along with the mail, she delivered household items such as100-pound bags of flour,hen feed, and even small livestock. On one occasion sheevendelivered a baby. Perhaps oneof the most important things that Viola brought the women of Buchanan Township was the Eaton's catalogue. They looked forwardto its delivery and, for a few stolen minutes of thedays that followed, wouldwistfullydaydreamabout the fine things that would have no use in the harsh and unforgiving Buchanan wilderness. MRS. RICHARD TRIES TO RECOVER FAMILY PIG FROM A BEAR [Gerald] "Mrs. Richard was left with the small children she had, and Mr. Richard wentto work in the square timber business in the fall, and they had a pen with a pig in it not far from their cabin, andshe heard the pig squeal. The biggest threatthen was bears. She went out and heard the pig squealing.She had a little lantern which was acandle in a frame. She got some pans or something that could make a noise, thinking that she could maybe scare the bear,but the bearhad lifted thepig over the log fence with his frontpaws and he got into the bushwith it. So she followed himas she thought,I guesshe'll drop the pig any time. He didn't. So it was a fight to see who was going to get the pig. So finallyshe got far enough away from the cabin or housethat she couldn't go any farther with the small kidsso she had to come back andlet the pig go. So that was their winter's supply of meat. And you know, I've got a book called TheFoxfire and they have a bear proof pigpen in the Adirondacks. Andthose people lived much like the people wherewe lived. They used the same system ofthinking.It wasexactly. When I read that, I had to readsome of it twice because I couldn't believe thatpeoplein another part of the country wouldbe so much alike and be so distant. But those people in the AppalachianMountains had thesame thinking patternas wehad atthe river, using an uneducated way of dealing with things." LOST COMMUNITY & WHAT WAS LEFT TO LOSE [Elizabeth] Life for the second generation ofsettlers in Buchanan was perhaps moredifficult though less isolated than it was for thefirst settlers. In the 1850s and 1860s,as the lumber tradebegan to require more unskilledlabourers and wintersupplyroutes, the construction of a major transportation artery from Pembroke toMattawa wasbegun. FAILING LAND THAT SETTLERS LOST [Gerald] "You would notice a cow path on the outside of the fences, not on the inside. It didn't seem strange then because none of us ever knew that you had to feed cows in summertime. In summer they were supposed tofind the food themselves. And they weren'tto get that in the field. The field was used togrow winter food for them. So the fences wereput around the field, and the cattle being hungry, they would look at the field and want to go in, so they'd haveapath around the fence. And every farmerseemed to have that sameway ofthinking. Because you didn't have enough land to grow and to pasture as well. ALEC ARBOUR was one of thepeople who lived at the .. near the Atomic Plant [where it is located today], and he was a very seriousman.He was a very honestperson and he looked at things in a serious fashion.And he had a son who went to work for the railroad and became a section man in Westmeath. And one day his son came up and got him to take himdownfor avisit andwhenthey got below Pembroke near Westmeaththe cattle were inside the fences. They were in fields that looked like hayfields.But in Westmeath they were pasture fields! So he insisted to his son to stop his car. He said 'I got to goinand tell that farmer that hiscowsare in his hay.' And the son said 'Dad, that's not a hayfield. That's a pasture.' 'Well,' he said, 'where I come from, that's a hay field!' And his son said 'Well, don't go in there andtell him that his cattleareinthere 'cause he'll laugh. Becausethat's what it's like down here. We have fields ofsummer feed for cattle.' But there's an awful difference in the way that people who havecan live, and people who have not can.It'sthat simple. You make duewith whatyouhave. And even the cattlehad their shortages. Because they were expected to eat leaves and grassesalong the paths and places. We know today that you can't keep animals in that condition. And asI look at that now, I see thatouranimals were theworstones off, because they hadtodowith much lessthan they should have. That's dogs, cats, horses, and cattle. Every one. I look back today and I feel sorry thatconditions were that bad for anything. And the reasonwas that people didn't have thenecessaryfeed forthem orthemoney to buy it. So maybein that sense, everybody might be better off. Animalsincluded." A COMMUNITY LOST [Gerald] [Elizabeth:How did the residents know that they were losing their land?] "Theywere visited by a person that represented the purchasing people, and they were told by them that the land wasbeing looked at as a potential sitefor development of some sort. Fewpeople knew what it was for, but they vaguely thought that ithad something todo with thewar, because at that pointin timethewarwas not going favorable. So they came and told the people that there was a chance that that land wouldbe purchased and they wouldhave to move. Then it createda division. The older people did not want to move. The younger, who were notattachedas much to the land, they looked on that area as one thatdidn't furnish any opportunity. An opportunityto make a living wasverylimited. But then the older people could not, were too old to work,so they had no gains bythe Governmentbuying their property. So that divided the people in their thinking. The old people did not want to leave the [Ottawa] River. It wasthe River they weregonna miss. Because some knewthat they'd never get back tothat river again. It's not a bigthing butit's animportantthing when that's all a person has. It was sadness, really. Sadness. The water smell, it'shard to explain.But the smell of theRiver wasone of the most nicest things I remember about it. Why, I can't tell you. Strange, eh, thatsomething like that can stand out as being important? When you don't have too much, the little things mean more.Andthe smell of water even today, Ilike it becauseI can almost recallthat same thing again. The memoriesand history ofneighbours andthings that you had toleave behind, that was the saddest and the most noticeable loss. Not the value of the land thatwas left, so much asthe breaking up of the groups of people that lived by the River. Itwas as if a glass wasshattered into many pieces because no one couldever regroup again. You had to go your separate ways because there was not available places foryou so that the numbers of people could ever live close togetheragain. And thatwas one of the losses that was the most severe, I wouldsay." RELOCATING A LIFE CAN BE A PAIN IN THE NECK [Gerald] "The year before we were going to leave, a cookhouse was built out oflogs, which was supposed to bea greatimprovement tothe leaner thatwas therebefore.This thing wasgoing to have astovein itand we could whittle in there in the winter, which was what I wantedin the worstway. We'djust gotthe thing-the logs ofit-up, and the roof part of it on, when the Government came andsaid 'You guys are going to have to leave, andget out.' But anyway, Rogerwent in the springtime, and his time was runningout, and he was livingin the old house at the river where the lighthouse is. And hehad with him a lady who was a French woman; she was a little thin woman. And shewas down at theold house. He wentup tothe clearance and took some of these logs off the summer kitchen to take it to move it down to the oldhouse and then takeit up the river. He put on some of these logsand started downthe hilland right wherethe roadtakes a bend, the water was washing-there was a little stream there-so the ice had sort ofwashed out under one side, and unknown to him whenhe came tothis place where the icewouldn't support the sled, it broke away. And he went down frontward andwent over the front of the load andgot under the logs. He was there for two or three hours before she realized hewasn't coming back, something was wrong. When she came up, she saw the situation but she couldn't do anything about it because she couldn't liftthe logs. Shehad towalk upthe ice to Balmer's Bay,to where John Robert lived, and gethim to come with her. And the two of them managed to unload the logs off him. Theygot him to the hospital and I remember seeing himin the hospital, and they had him all tiedup withpulleysand ropes and what have you because his legs were all broken andthey were incasts, youknow? He lived through that, and thelast time he gotinto problems was he was coming home from the Byways Hotel one nightand walked in the middle of the highway andanother car came and hit him again! With broken legs and arms and whatever I guess you can imagine and they thought, 'What are we gonna do with him now?' [Laughter]. Oh, he had a good sense of humor,but he was ninety two orthree when he died." COMING FULL CIRCLE [Gerald] "You were torn from something that had grewon you, or in you, without giving you a choice, or saying 'Do you wantto givethis up, or don'tyou?' Andthere's somethingabout saying it in that fashion thatmakes you a bitbitter.Because you don't have a choice. It's likesomeone imposingsomething on you, you know? And you think 'Oh lord, I'm human, I live in a free country, why do I nothave a choice?' Because you were led to believe that you owned the little block of land that you livedon. And then someone comes alongand says 'Sorry, I'm taking it from you. Youdon't own it, you're only sittinghere. We allowed you to stay here, and we're taking it back.' Butno one ever told you before that thiswould be taken from you. Well, I've just come to the conclusion not that many weeks ago, that the trade-off was worth it. So I thought to myself, I've often feltbad about leaving the [Ottawa] River, but for thegood they'vedone, I would say it was worth it. Yep, becauseifwe had to depend on far-away things we would be in a very difficult situation. I rethought that. I always didn't like having to leave theriverthat I left,but then asI got into a tightspot where I did have needforthe service of that hospital, Ithought to myself 'This is paybacktime.I'm getting paid backwith interest for what I lost.' Does that answer you?" THE STORYTELLER Gerald Nadeau spent his boyhood years in Buchanan Township on his UncleRoger's farm, helping to tend tothe lighthouse and observing the people around him. He can recallstories about the early days with a crystal clear memory. These stories cover the time from 1830 when the first homesteaders laid claim to unyieldingplots of land along the OttawaRiver,to 1944 when His Majesty The King expropriated the Township of Buchanan for the wareffort. Today, Gerald is one of the only remaining links that enable historians historians to catch a glimpse at what daily life in an Ottawa Valley pioneer community waslike. A WhisperedHistory aims to share Gerald's unforgettable stories, bothheartening and heartbreaking, aboutthe settlersof Buchanan Township before they are forgotten forever.