Radio Script #1269

Little Talks on Common Things
March 29, 1981

Last week’s broadcast on Waterville’s Franco-Americans did not have time for important aspects of that community.

The rise of those people in business and industry has been notable. Gradually, as they became bilingual, able to converse with the English-speaking majority, they rose to positions as foremen in the mills and then into positions in management in Lockwood and Iron Works. As population grew on the Plains, local businesses sprang up to meet the needs. The first recorded retail merchant in the area was Fred Poulin, who opened a grocery store in 1869. His business was quickly followed by other grocers, druggists, clothing and dry goods dealers, milliners, jewelers, and others all along Water Street. By 1900 the Plains supported a flourishing retail business. Larger enterprises soon developed, Pichers in hardware and furniture, the Reny plumbers, Drapeau’s electrical appliances, and the huge chain of Laverdiere drug stores.

Meanwhile many stores operated by Yankees found it desirable to have French-speaking clerks. That also opened the way for many French employees in the local banks.

By no means were all early French businesses located on Water Street. One of the city’s most prominent grocers, Jules Gamache, was located on Union Street near what became the Lebanese section of the city. Evariste Laverdiere started his business in a small area on Appleton Street. By 1920 Franco-Americans were operating garages, automobile dealerships, and many other enterprises. Waterville’s first French physician is said to have been Dr. Pichette about the middle of the 19th century. Little is known about him except what a few of the oldest French citizens remember their parents or grandparents said about him. He seems to have been for those early Canadians something like a medicine man to the Indians, able to cure as much by magic as by medicine.

The first Franco-American physician of record was Dr. John Fortier, who started practice in 1883 after his graduation from the Bowdoin Medical School. He was already a resident of Waterville, having moved here with his parents from Trois Riviere, Quebec. He had studied with the local Dr. Campbell before entering medical school. In 1893 came Dr. Gedeon Rancourt and in 1902 Dr. John Pomerleau, soon followed by Dr. Napoleon Bisson and Dr. L. A. D’Argy. Among those who had a part in the development of the Sisters, now Seton, Hospital were Doctors Harvey Bourassa, .Richard Chasse, Armond Guite, Ovid Pomerleau and James Poulin.

For many years Waterville’s leading veterinary surgeon was Dr. Achille Joly, father of a municipal judge and a grandfather of a mayor of the city. Franco-American dentists have included Roger Bourassa, Norman Pacquette, Lucien Pellerin, Fred Toulouse, John Poirier and his son, Lewis Rancourt and Robert Dubord. The doctors Poirier are among the few French local people who are of Acadian rather than Quebec descent.

Franco-Americans have been prominent in the law. The first to be well known was Fred Clair. He was second generation French-Canadian, his parents having come to Old Town where he was born on 1866. He was one of the earliest French to attend Coburn, where he graduated in 1886. Ten years later he was admitted to the bar, after study with the Waterville attorney, Simon Brown. He was city clerk, city solicitor, and a member of the city’s Centennial Committee in 1902.

In 1900 Alfred Letourneau set up a law office and became prominent in the city’s political life. Best known of all Waterville lawyers was Harold Dubord whose eminent career has seldom been rivaled. Cyril Joly and Roland Poulin both served as municipal judge. In business and community activities were lawyers Napoleon Marcou and Jerome Daviau.

Waterville Franco-Americans have taken their place in the arts. The French people are renowned for their devotion to music and the dance. At the turn of the century, when one walked along Water Street, he could frequently hear the sounds of “au clair de la lune” and other French tunes. When Waterville celebrated its Sesquicentennial in 1952, a feature of the pageant was the French-Canadian dances.

In the early 1900’s Charles Marcou became an opera singer whose voice was heard in leading American cities and in some o.f the famous opera houses of Europe. Gladys Cyr sang in New York’s great music halls. A French brass band flourished in the 1880’s and many French musicians were in the more famous band conducted by R. B. Hall. Hall is quoted as saying: “There is more music in the little finger of a Frenchman than in the whole body of a Yankee.”

After the coming of radio, Norman Lambert served the Bangor station WLBZ as organist and pianist. His brother, Carroll Lambert became an organist and composer in New York City. A well known soloist in both Catholic and Protestant churches has been Theodore Perry. At first the local parochial schools were staffed by nuns from Canada, but gradually local French laity made their way into the staffs of the public schools. Well remembered are Edward Simoneau and Lionel Saucier. Even better known was Gladys Perry, long time teacher of French at Waterville High School. In 1907 there was formed a dramatic and musical society called the “club laurier,” organized by Charles Roderick. Its first major production, “La Grace de Dieu” was directed by Father Charland.

Waterville Franco-Americans made at least one contribution to Hollywood. Lou Cody, whose baptismal name was Cote~ rose to stardom in the days of the silent movies. As Franco-Americans rose in economic and social status, they naturally took places in the city’s political life. In 1883 Fred Pooler was elected a selectman. He was later an alderman and a member of the Board of Education, and in 1902 he represented Waterville in the Maine Legislature.

When Waterville elected its first city council in 1888 the government was bicameral with a board of aldermen of seven members and a common council of fourteen. Ward VII, populated heavily with French, at once had an alderman and two councilmen, and in all the subsequent years seldom has any but a Franco-American represented that ward. Joining Pooler as its first alderman were its first councilmen Moses Butler and Edward Bolduc.

From the time when they first obtained American citizenship, the French Canadians have been predominantly Democrats, but not always so. The present Mayor Laverdiere is a Republican. A local attorney, Alfred Nathieu, was appointed municipal judge in 1912. He was later followed by Cyril Joly and Roland Poulin. Jules Gamache, the grocer, was Representative to the Legislature in 1910.

The most renowned of Waterville Franco-Americans in the political arena has been Harold Dubord, elected the first French-Canadian mayor in 1929. He was the first of all Waterville mayors to serve for five terms. Active in state politics, he was chairman of the Maine Democratic Committee and attended five national Democratic conventions. He ended his illustrious career as a justice of the Maine Supreme Court. He entered Colby in 1910, but left before graduation to attend law school. Had he continued with his Colby class he would have been the first Franco-American Colby graduate.

Waterville’s first French-Canadian mail carrier was Charles Butler in 1892, and in 1937 came the first to serve as postmaster, Ernest Poulin, who enjoyed long tenure in that office. The first French citizen to serve as City Marshall was Edward Lahelle in 1933. When that office was changed to Chief of Police Albert Thibodeau became its occupant in 1951.

Since Harold Dubord’s fifth term, several Franco-Americans have sat in the mayor’s chair. Among them Dubord’s son Richard, who was mayor at the time of the Waterville Sesquicentennial in 1952. Others have been Malcolm Fortier and Cyril Joly, Jr.

The French community has supplied the city with some outstanding athletes. To mention any names is to invite criticism for the omission of others, but quickly remembered are Arthur and Raymond Roy, “Biddy” Poulin, Robert Lafleur, the Labelle boys, John Belanger and Ray Lemieux. Like their Canadian counterparts, many young men of the local French community have been outstanding hockey players.

The Waterville French rendered conspicuous service in American wars. At least two Civil War companies recruited in this area were heavily populated with French-Canadians. Twenty Waterville Franco-Americans served in the Spanish-American War. The local French were so conspicuous in World War I that names of their soldiers were given both to the local American Legion Post for Bourque, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars for Pare, and Castonguay Square was named for Lt. George Castonguay. Of the 255 men from Waterville who served in World War II more than 140 were Franco-American. For one of them was named the Robert LaFleur Municipal Airport.

Social acceptance came slowly for the early French immigrants. They were regarded as second class citizens, and only by strenuous and patient effort did they gradually gain recognition. In his excellent University of Maine thesis on Waterville’s Franco-Americans, Albert Fecteau wrote in 1952: “By 1900, members of the French community had begun to gain respect and recognition from their Yankee neighbors. The racial ties planted by the first settler nearly a century earlier became a gigantic monument, the product of enduring courage, religious devotion, and cultural performance. When the French came, they were a foreign people speaking a strange tongue and having strange customs. With great effort and against great odds they built a fine community.”

Mr. Fecteau added that intermarriage and other factors, as well as adoption of the English language, so mingled the French and Yankee population that, in particular instances it became hard to tell one from the other. The question is often asked why the French were so much slower than the Irish to gain local acceptance. While part of the answer lies in the more aggressive nature of the Irish, the more weighty reason was the difference in language. While a few Irish spoke Gaelic when they came to America, even they had become well versed in the use of English through Britain’s long domination of Ireland. It was very probable the sheer necessity of the French-Canadians to learn English in order to achieve any appreciable economic advancement that made them gradually fully acceptable, citizens on an equality with Yankees. Today we are all equally Americans.

That completes our story of these fine people in Waterville. We are fully cognizant that many names have been omitted, and perhaps even some important general facts. For any serious omissions we give deep apology, assuring they have not been intentional. But now we must say goodbye until next week.

Year: 1981