jeudi 30 septembre 2010

Entêtement

Une école pour Gémont





Le lac Gémont, dans les Laurentides entre Morin-Heights et Lac-des-Seize-Iles, aujourd’hui, est assez sauvage encore, imaginez-le autour de 1920.  Quelques colons courageusement déboisent, épierrent et tentent de cultiver les fameuses terres de roches de Claude-Henri Grignon (auteur bien connu au Québec).    Ils s’appellent Jean, Joseph, Baptiste.( Les noms sont faux, l'histoire est vraie et rappelle La Petite Poule d'Eau, de Gabrielle Roy).   Peu de ressources, beaucoup d’enfants; aller au village, Morin-Heights le plus proche, constitue une aventure héroïque.  Pas de chemin encore et, l’hiver, sans raquettes on ne va nulle part.
Les Baptiste, pourtant, s’en tirent mieux que les autres, le père est un bon bâtisseur et, bientôt, on fait appel à ses talents.  Il sait lire et compter, une rareté précieuse à l’époque.  Un beau jour, il descend au village à l’assemblée des commissaires d’école.  Sa demande est accueillie assez froidement, il habite trop loin et il faut un minimum de 9 enfants pour ouvrir une école; qu’il les trouve et l’on verra…mais on ne promet rien.
Notre homme remonte à cheval et rentre dans ses terres.  Il a 5 enfants en âge scolaire, ses voisins en ont bien 7 ou 8 autres…mais les voisins ne voient pas à quoi ça servirait de les envoyer à l’école d’autant qu’ils en ont besoin pour travailler la terre.  Joseph se dit qu’il l’aura son école dût-il la remplir de petits Joseph.
Quelques années plus tard, ses plus vieux, sa femme et lui leur ont appris ce qu’ils savaient, et 4 autres petits Joseph sont prêts.  Le bonhomme redescend au village avec sa bande et, à la stupéfaction générale, déclare : « Vous avez vos 9 élèves, je veux mon école ».  On consent à fournir l’institutrice, mais il devra fournir l’école, la chauffer et loger et nourrir la maîtresse.
Marché conclu et les 9 entrent à la nouvelle école construite sur les terres des Joseph.  La dernière institutrice fut une Joseph qui devint, par la suite, religieuse.  Le dernier Joseph ayant terminé sa 7ième année, l’école, faute d’élève, fut fermée au début des années 40 si je ne m’abuse.  Lors du développement du tourisme, les jeunes Joseph la convertirent en chalet d’été construit par Joseph Construction, entrepreneur général.
On peut encore voir l'école-chalet à l'emplacement de l'ancienne ferme, mais s'il reste encore 4 Joseph dans les environs, on n'en trouve aucun sur l'ancien domaine.  Cependant, là où se situait la maison des Jean, on trouve un Jean Construction limitée...faut croire qu'ils ont compris.

















8 commentaires:

  1. An interesting piece of history. With all the challenges involved.

    You do so well at bringing these things alive. C'est très bien.

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  2. Merci noble Ours. De nos jours, dans plusieurs petits villages et, même, dans certains quartiers de nos villes, des parents doivent se battre pour empêcher la fermeture de leurs écoles devenues trop grandes pour peu d'élèves à cause de la baisse de la natalité.
    Dans un village, la fermeture de l'école entraîne souvent le départ des jeunes familles et la mort, à long terme, du village lui-même.
    What a pity.

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  3. My rusty French and Babelfish both leave me still a little uncertain... are you saying that in order to get a school, the man obliged his wife to give birth four more times? The poor woman.

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  4. Sledpress, in the early 20th century in Québec, and particularly in rural and colonization areas (such as Gémont then was), 12 to 18 children families were common. It was a combination of heavy infantile mortality that necessitated many chidren to make for a succession and of Church teachings that forbade birth control.
    My own French-Canadian grandmother had 9 children, 5 died before they were 3 years of age and two died in their late teens of tuberculosis. Only my mother and one brother survived. Uncle Henry died at 86 and childless; my mother died at 90 and had three boys. WE all survived.

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  5. My grandmother had thirteen children -- twelve lived, including the last one she had at age 44 -- though I have always wondered why she didn't take kitchen implements to parts of my grandfather. You could tell that the younger siblings, born when their parents were "childrened out," had toxic personalities full of greed and grudges.

    I know people survive this kind of thing, but you never did answer my question: did they really have those kids to meet the requirements for a school district?

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  6. That is funny, I answered you, Sledpress, earlier this morning but it seems to have wandered off my blog.
    Most likely in this case both were on the same wavelenght and decided to have those children. Granted, they may not have had much choice anyway; in those years the pill did not exist and other means, save absolute abstinence (Palin, O'Donnell, hello) were not, for many, a viable alternative. Besides some women liked to have sex and some of our French-Canadian women were some of them. So it was not all male dominance as some may think.
    As for toxic personalities, they can be found in single children also. My experience learned me that age of parents and number of siblings, or absence thereof, is not a major factor in personal evolution.

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  7. "Besides some women liked to have sex and some of our French-Canadian women were some of them"
    :)
    I admit it does grow on you.

    But I can't imagine anyone actually *wanting* to go through the experience of giving birth that many times. Granted, as you say, birth control has been hard to practice (especially in Catholic cultures) though it seems people have been trying inventive approaches since the dawn of time. I can't remember who said that we are designed by our DNA to be machines dedicated to the production of more DNA.

    I do nonetheless feel a cold horror at the thought of families that huge. There is something in the US now called the "full quiver" movement, associated with the religious right wing. Their idea is to have as many children as they possibly can. One guy who was apparently dedicaetd to this principle ended up on trial because he forgot the youngest child all day in a closed van in summertime and she suffocated. He had lost count of how many children he was managing. In a metaphorical way I think children in all huge families are at risk for this fate.

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  8. I can understand you horror and empathize with it but I do not share it. In Laval, this summer, a man left his only child in his car in scorching heat. The child died and the man is before the Courts. Numbers had nothing to do with it, just sheer negligence and sloppyness.
    And yes reproductiuon is a natural instinct in every species wether animal or vegetal, rocks have other ways of doing it.

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