Family Visit to Maine - Part 1

This year I visited Maine in May which is a sweet time to go there - a little rain, a lot of sun and no muggy hot days!  Besides spending time with family, I accomplished four 'family history' related tasks: hosting a picture party, interviewing two family members, taking pictures of ancestor's former residences and researching land records at the county courthouse.In this post, I will cover the first two accomplishments.

The picture party in which some of the Albert cousins were waiting to share family pictures -older than the 1980's- was a great success. They brought the family pictures to the home of Paul Albert in Westbrook, and here is where we hugged and laughed and reminisced about the fun times we all used to have together. Usually these experiences had a beach theme since our grandfather used to own two properties near Old Orchard Beach. If you go back farther to my mother's youth, many stories and memories center around properties my grandfather owned at another water location - Crescent Lake near Casco.The picture above is my mother Pauline as a young child sitting in front of the lake cottage.

The summers really stand out as special times for all the Alberts. Above is a comparison of the Pine Point cottage from yesteryear and the way it looks today. We are talking several renovations here.

Besides his family, there was nothing more important to my grandfather than his business, The Men's Shop.  He started the store in 1923 with two other men (named in the caption below) and it lasted for nearly seventy-five years. This is a story I wanted to tell in more detail so I decided to do some research and interview his son, Roland, and his grandson, Peter, who both chose to carry on the business and together served some sixty years at its helm.

End note: Thanks to Claudia, Nancy and Pauline for providing numerous pictures for scanning and sharing with everyone.I highly recommend a picture party event for other historians and genealogists to try with their families.

Introducing the Ancestors - Ferdinand Albert (1864-1929)

Ferdinand Albert was the father of August ("Gus") Albert. He was born in Caraquet, New Brunswick (more information on Caraquet) and made his way to Westbrook to work in the mills like so many of our ancestors. In 1900, he was thirty-five living on Winslow Lane, and listed as a silk weaver on the federal census record.  He worked at the Haskell Silk Mill, one of the foremost silk manufacturers in New England.

The Falls located next to the Haskell Silk Mill

"The business began in a wooden building on the west side of Bridge St., very near the falls as this photograph shows.  The Haskell Silk Mill was the only silk mill in Maine and one of the oldest in New England. This was one of the industries that carried the name of Westbrook throughout the entire country and attracted an industrious population to the town." Quoted text and photo courtesy of Westbrook Historical Society.

    Ferdinand emigrated from Canada in 1887 and married a Hebert in 1895. On the Albert gravestone, she is listed as "Georgienne H".

In a taped interview in 1990, Memere reported that Georgienne died of breast cancer at the age of 42 when Pepere was just 11 years old. Many years later, Mr. Albert suffered a stroke. Memere and Pepere became his caretakers. They were living on a second floor apartment on Cole Street in Westbrook at the time. It had four little rooms and was located across the street from St. Hyacinth Church. As the family got larger, Memere and Pepere decided they needed more living space so they bought a lot nearby to have a house built. In December 1927, they moved into the new house on Bridge Street, and had a bathroom installed on the bottom level to accommodate Mr. Albert.                                                                                                               

  Soon after the move to their new residence, Memere and Pepere made arrangements for Mr. Albert to live at  the Marcotte Home in Lewiston, Maine, because it got to be too much to take care of him with four young children - Pauline, their last child, was born in September 1928. Mr. Albert enjoyed going to chapel and chatting with the other residents. He died a few months later of a heart attack having resided at Marcotte for six months. I am hoping some other pictures of Mr. Albert will eventually surface. 
Pictured above: The Albert family headstone at St Hyacinth Cemetary in Westbrook, Maine.

Family Treasures

Three family treasures have already been mentioned in earlier posts: the Wilfrid Genealogy Book from 1948, the Brookfield Clothing Award (a gold statue) won by Pepere around 1960, and the 1990 audio recording of Memere and Aunt Jo.  By family members responding to this post, we can create an inventory of other valued family possessions. Two books in my own library were signed by Wilfrid Albert and passed on to me by Sister Rebecca:
The Poems of Longfellow, signed by Wilfrid on July 16. 1959, and
The Reader's Digest of Books by Helen Rex Keller, signed by Wilfrid in 1941.

Here are some additional family heirlooms:

1. A vase given to Memere as a gift from Wilfrid in the 1940's.

2. Painting by Sister Rebecca

3. A boudoir bench to hold dolls from Pauline's youth.

4. These hand carved statues were owned by Wilfrid Albert. Paul Albert provides some information about them:

One was sculpted in Switzerland from a famous school of sculpture and depicts a farmer representing one of his grandfathers. The other was carved in a famous carving school in Quebec and depicts a fisherman representing his other grandfather.

For family history purposes, the two items of most value by far are the Genealogy book of Wilfrid Albert and the audio recording done by Becky in 1990.  Thank goodness we have a librarian in the family who took an early interest to preserve something like the voices of our elders.  What else do we have out there to enrich our family's legacy!?

Reunions and Holidays

Besides the traditional Christian holidays, it seems the most special days for the Alberts were the Valle reunions. We would all meet at Valle's Steak House near the turnpike in Westbrook but I don't remember how often we used to gather. These get-togethers were always fun. Besides good food, we got to see all the cousins together in one place, and everyone seemed to be in good moods!

Today it seems we only get together when someone marries or dies with the exception of the Bernie Girls. Sue explains how the Bernie's Girls got formed (sounds almost like a singing group~!):

When Memere was dying--and in that nursing home at the very end, I told her I would make her a premise that I would keep the Albert cousins together---THEN, I backed up a bit after thinking that might be a bit much, so I said, "Well, at least the girl cousins.  We'll meet every now and then and remember how we all grew up together. We'll call ourselves Bernie's Girls."

     She laughed and said, "That'll be fun. I wish I could be there with you."

    I said, "You will be!"

Albert reunions of the far past included summer trips to Limerick to visit Memere's sister, Marie. I retell the story from talking to Pauline: "We used to go have family reunions at the farm with all my mother’s family and all my cousins. They had a big field where all the food was laid out. Some of the guys played ball, and one time somebody threw an egg at Pepere as a joke but it wasn't received as such."

Christmas was a big holiday growing up. It was certainly more materialistic than it was religious for me. This holiday was the busiest time of year for visitors both family and friends. What about Christmas Eve - always fun huh?  Here's an early Albert Christmas Eve story:  Memere and Pepere went to midnight mass. Pauline spoke to Lorraine, “Has Santa Claus come yet?”  She said, “Well, I don't know, let’s go down and peek.”  So they all went downstairs and found all the presents were there. When Memere and Pepere came home, they found the kids playing with all the unwrapped gifts! Pauline remembers getting a doll carriage that year. 

Centenarian Memere

Photo collage by Bruce Siulinski.
Thanks to Becky who had Memere and Aunt Jo sit down in 1990, an extended conversation was recorded for posterity. This recording has allowed me to learn a lot about the early histories of both the Alberts and the Gagnons. Bernadette Alexandra Gagnon was born on March 27, 1902 in St. Malo, Quebec, just over the border of Vermont. She became an Albert on February 11, 1924 when she married Auguste Albert. For a perspective of something else happening in the year of Memere's birth: one of the coolest buildings in New York City, the Flatiron, was completed. The picture below is from Ardent Editions Historic Photographs and was photographed by August Loeffler.

As mentioned in an earlier post, Pepere stopped going to school at an early age and started selling clothes before he became an adult. The same is true of Memere...she stopped going to school at age 13 and began working at the mill when she was 15. She later changed jobs working the counter at a women's clothing store right next door to where Pepere was working and the rest is history!

Memere's parents were both born in Quebec but they met in Westbrook. Families like the Gagnon's and St. Pierre's came to Westbrook to work in the mills. Many underage offspring would go to work at these sites and their paychecks would directly support their families-as was the case with Memere. Osias Gagnon, one of Memere's brothers, actually died at the age of 16 from an accident at the mill.

I remember Memere as being sharp and stout. She had a kind of toughness about her. This quality of resiliency must have contributed to her becoming an a centenarian. She always showed intense care and love for her familly - nothing else was more important to her.
By the example of Memere's long life, it seems the longevity gene exists in the Albert blood. How many of you know that Pepere's sister, Antoinette Gallant, lived to 101 also?  So...what contributes to a long life?  Besides genetic predisposition, one's health habits certainly make a difference. What are your thoughts on what factors influence a long life? Please answer the poll on the upper right of the blog. Also, it would be great to hear of your stories and thoughts about Memere.

 

Pauline, Memere and Roland

100th Birthday Party and Reunion in Portland, ME in 2002.