Railroad Man, Pierre Gagnon

In a 2009 interview with Roland Albert, former owner of the Men's Shop, I asked him to tell me about the oldest relative he could recall. He remembered his grandfather, Pierre Gagnon (aka "Pepere Gagnon"), to be a track supervisor on the railroad, and that he was always well dressed at family functions. Roland's sister, Jeanne, also recalled Pierre as the oldest relative when she was interviewed in the same year, but she remembered him as an older man living out his retirement years at Kinney Shores in Saco. Her image of Pepere Gagnon was of him doing something he loved: walking along the beach picking up driftwood logs to later use in the fireplace.

Diana and Pierre Gagnon in their later years.

Pierre Gagnon was born in the municipality of L'Islet, Quebec, Canada in 1863.  He married Diana St. Pierre also from Quebec. Like many families in 19th century rural Canada, the Gagnons wanted to immigrate to another land for a better life. He set his sights for such a move at the very early age of 16 when he first entered the United States.  The career he chose for himself would propel him to be part of one of the great migration movements of the industrial age.  He worked on the railroads for over forty years in Canada, Maine and New Hampshire. The story told here comes with the help of a genealogist's gem of a find: a naturalization record containing an affidavit written in Pierre's own words and signed by him in 1935.

Maine Central Railroad General Office Building in Portland Maine, c.1920

     The naturalization record states that Pierre married in Westbrook in 1886 and resided there while he was employed in the "section gang" for the Portland and Rochester Railroad. Hearing of higher wages being offered at the Maine Central Railroad in North Stratford, New Hampshire, he transferred to that site to work as a foreman. Soon after, Maine Central acquired a railroad in St. Malo, Quebec, and he relocated back to Canada. Pierre's wife and two daughters (Marie and Exilia, both born in Westbrook) were living in Westbrook during these transitions, but she joined her husband when he moved to St. Malo for his new work assignment.

Image taken from the online ebook: 

The Official Railway Guide: North American Freight Service Edition

     
     The census records of Canada show the increasing size of the Gagnon family; by 1901, eight children are enumerated. The family needed larger living quarters than what could be provided by rented apartments so Pierre bought a piece of land and built a residence. As the children approached school age, Pierre and Diana desired for them to be educated in American schools. In 1905, Diana moved back to Westbrook, Maine to enroll her children in the fall term. Even though a request had been put in to change job locations, Pierre would have to wait another three years before the transfer came through. During this time, he continued to work for the Maine Central Railroad in St. Malo, and visited his family in Maine every two weeks.

Signature section from the 1935 document

     
     When Pierre returned to Westbrook in 1908, he would remain a Maine resident the rest of his life. All of his offspring including the children born in Canada would later marry and vote as American citizens by virtue of Pierre's naturalization. Two sons joined the Maine National Guard; one of them enlisted in the Army and served overseas. From the statements provided by Pierre in the naturalization document, a clear picture of his means and motivation for moving to Westbrook became clear; he lived and grew his family in St. Malo because he needed to be there for work, but he and his wife's vision were to have their children be raised and schooled in Westbrook.

Willey Brook Bridge in New Hampshire, circa 1906

Working on the railroads was certainly not a glamorous career, but an important one nonetheless; maybe even an exciting one in the sense of being part of a revolution that paved the way for fast and reliable transportation from and between the remote areas of New England and Canada.  Pierre Gagnon lived a long and fruitful life, and realized his dream of providing a better life for his family.

Postscript: Thanks to David Gagnon of Denmark, Maine for providing a copy of Pierre's naturalization papers. The Maine Central Railroad images (and the NH bridge image) are all sourced from wikipedia.org. Another post on Pierre Gagnon appeared earlier on this blog.

The Art of Good Business

The following story won 2nd prize in the first annual history contest sponsored by the Westbrook Historical Society:

The mills represent a large part of Westbrook’s history, but another part comprises the legacies of local businesses making good for its citizens.  During Westbrook’s earliest days, the businesses of lumbering and blacksmith helped to make the town more inhabitable. It was a time “everything was done by hand...here by honest and hard work, a competence was acquired”.  Local made products contributed to successful businesses in Westbrook, but a connection to the community was always a necessary ingredient.

The above image, courtesy of Maine Historical Society, shows two of Westbrook's early Main Street buildings:  the Presumpscot House and the Brigham Block.  This image is from 1880 but later the The Brigham Block would house Porell's and The Men's Shop.

A story about such a connection can be told by hearing about one of Westbrook’s successful, long-term businesses of the twentieth century.  In the 1926 Directory of Westbrook, Gorham and Windham, there amongst the residential listings is the name of a clothing business that was founded only a few years before: The Men’s Shop.  The three proprietors of the business were named as Hormidas Vincent, Auguste Albert, and Emile Thuotte along with its address as 874 Main Street.

The business would later lose a partner but my grandfather, Auguste “Gus” Albert, would remain at its heart and soul until his death in 1982.  Over the years, The Men’s Shop never lost its focus on quality products and personalized customer service.  Certainly, these characteristics held true for other long-term Westbrook businesses as well, such as McLellan's Department Store, or A. H. Benoit Co., where my grandfather worked as a clerk when he was a young boy. 

The legacy of Auguste Albert’s salesmanship and personal connection to his customers was carried on through his son Roland, and later through his grandson Peter.  Of course, there were other major players in the success of The Men’s Shop, but the Alberts may have been the key contributors for turning the business into a culture.  The business acumen of Auguste and Roland were extended to the community with their involvement and leadership in the Westbrook Chamber of Commerce.    Motivated by the pride I felt for my grandfather’s business and his standing in the community, I created a family history blog in his honor called August Legacy.

In May 2010, I was fortunate to sit down with Peter Albert at his home in Westbrook as he reflected on his twenty years of experience with the business.  Three themes that emerged from that conversation could easily be themes that relate the stories of other businesses in Westbrook that proved the test of time.  Quality products, knowing your customers, and adjusting to the changing local economy stood out as factors that led the Men's Shop to serve the residents of Westbrook for seventy-five years.  In describing how the business thrived in the heyday, Peter gave a picture of Westbrook as "a close-knit town, everybody knew everyone, the shops on Main Street were busy, and people supported the downtown businesses".

Sources:  

1. Karen Sherman Ketover (ed.), Fabius M. Ray's Story of Westbrook (Bowie, Maryland: Heritage Books, 1998), p. 184-185.

2. Portland Directory Company. Directory of Westbrook, Gorham and Windham (Maine). (Portland, Maine: Portland Directory Company/Fred L Tower Companies, 1926), p. 172.

A Life of Devotion and Education

     Thanks to the documents provided by the Presentation of Mary Manchester Province Archives, we can know much more about the life of Rebecca Albert (1908-1996). As her grand nephew, I called her Aunt Rebecca but most people called her Sister Rebecca due to her chosen profession and service to the church. Her death and burial records recorded her name as "Sr. Rebecca Albert". She lived to the ripe old age of eighty-eight.  

Rebecca Albert in 1930

     Rebecca's childhood included a tragic life event - the loss of her mother to cancer. Like her siblings, she was raised by different relatives. In a recent conversation with her nephew, Roland Albert, he recalls that Rebecca lived with the family of an her aunt after the death of her mother. Upon graduating from grammar school at St. Hyacinths in Westbrook, she was sent to a girls boarding school in New Hampshire. The Diocese of Portland apparently provided financing for orphaned children to receive a Catholic education. Other Albert girls were sent to boarding schools in New Hampshire as well, including my mother, but only one went on to become a nun. In February 1933, Rebecca received her Profession of Vows and chose the religious name of "Sister Wilfrid-Marie" presumably to honor her brother-priest, Wilfrid Albert, whom she had a special affinity for. She took her final vows in the Order of the Presentation of Mary on August 15, 1938. 

St. Marie Parish in Manchester, NH

     The other lifelong passion of Rebecca's was teaching. Her teaching assignments detailed in the archive document shows she taught at nine different elementary and high schools from 1933 to 1987 which allays my concern of the numbers of schools I have taught at. Most years she taught at St. Marie High School in Manchester, NH. The subjects she taught were English, Writing and Art. She also taught writing skills to her fellow sisters in a college extension program. 

     In 1987, Rebecca retired to St. Marie Residence in Manchester, NH. She passed on March 23, 1996. Her life was devoted to God and education. Although I have not been able to confirm that she received a college degree, an obituary printed in the Portland Press Herald of March 26, 1996 reported that she obtained a bachelor of arts degree from the University of New Hampshire. In a call to the UNH Alumni office, she was not listed in the database.

Notes:  Much of the information in this post was taken from a short biography written by Sister Gabrielle Messier, and the source of the Manchester picture came from Susan Bailey's website.

Connecting Canada to France

If you want to know where in France the Alberts came from, then this is the post for you.
The Albert Family Book is a genealogy on Wilfrid Albert, but it also contains information on the area of France where the first Alberts came from. The book was written by Gabriel Drouin and delivered to Wilfrid Albert in March 1948. Gabriel Drouin was the son of Joseph Drouin, who founded the Drouin Genealogical Insitute (Institut genealogique Drouin) in 1899. The institute was for a while the most important company performing genealogical researches in Quebec.
The book is now in the possession of Roland Albert and safely kept at his home in Westbrook, Maine. I took digital images of all the pages last summer. Then I traveled to Lincoln, Maine to the home of my friend, Margo Kelly, who kindly translated the book orally. Margo is a French teacher at Lee Academy. Many thanks go to Margo for taking the time to translate this material during her vacation.

The genealogy of Wilfrid Albert is represented in the hand-written marriage records of the Albert ancestors. The above record shows the marriage of Ferdinand Albert and Georgiana Hebert, the parents of Auguste and Wilfrid Albert. Each marriage record in the book also shows the names of the bridegroom's parents and the bride's parents.
 
As you can see from page 29 of the book (shown below), the genealogy has been traced back to Pierre Albert with his marriage to Louise Grondin in 1702.  If you notice, the name Lucon has been underlined by Mr. Drouin because it represents the dioceses in France where Pierre comes from.

Upon a google search, I found numerous genealogical references to Pierre Albert including one that calls him the founder of the Albert family in New France. The Roy and Boucher Genealogy site gives his birth year as 1672 and his birth place as Poitou, an area in western France. Lucon is the parish and Poitou is the region. In my few years of genealogy research, this ancester is one of the earliest I have found - Pierre was born 132 years before Napolean became Emperor of France!

A map from the Albert book is shown above pointing out the exact location of Poitou in France. The family tree mentioned above tells about an even earlier ancestor, Rene Albert, born in the same town as Pierre in the year 1650.