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The Babineau family
My name is Maurice Babineau. I'm born here in Kedgwick. My grandfather was Narcisse Babineau. He's Acadian. His father, his own father, was born in Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia and my grandfather, he went to live in the area of Trois-Rivières in Québec, close to Daveluyville. That's a small village close to Trois-Rivières. He was there working. He had a mill. He had a house. He had a family. He married a girl who was a teacher. It was a nice young girl. Her name was Hélène Pintal. They had 21 children, but one of those days a big fire came down and they lost their mill. They lost their house and everything else, and my grandfather had no job. He met a friend of his whose name was Sir Wilfred Laurier, who then was probably deputy, minister or something like that. He was in the government anyway. He told him, he says "you need a job, no problem, he says, I'll give you one, he says". "I'll send you to New Brunswick, a new place, and you will go there and buy wood for the Deauville Lumber Company". My father came down and that's what he did since 1915. He arrived in Kedgwick and he bought wood for all those things, all those company. But one thing that was missing to us, there is that my grandfather had like a sofa, had a mirror, had lots of things in his house that we couldn't understand how could he buy them. After talking with my grandmother and all that, she said "well, when we decided to come down here we told him, Mr. Laurier, that we had nothing, well he says no problem, I'll give you my old stuff". That's why they had those things that nobody else had because my grandfather Chassé, who was supposed to be quite a rich man, had nothing like that. He had old chairs, like the old time, old beds and all those things, but him, he had like an example, he had a boat in a glass, half a boat in a glass that I don't remember I've seen any place else. I just discovered lately that my grandfather was named like a big responsible for the Société Jacques-Cartier. That's a secret society. Ten years after he died. "How come, I said to myself, that they name him a big honour like that ten years after he died". Well,, it goes back. My grandmother was a teacher, but she also worked in the post office. My grandfather had all kinds of jobs related to the politics, probably because of his friend Laurier or something like that. I can't prove that but that's what the old timer says. It's how we found out that my grandfather was, probably was named because of his affiliate with the Liberal Party, because as far as I can remember, he would talk to my grandfather Narcisse about let's say MacKenzie King or whatever, the Conservatives, whatever, he would get red right away. The only party he knows, the only thing he knows was the Liberal Party and that was it, you know. That's why I feel that today, we tried to make some research there because of the things somebody gave to him, we did find out though that the piano, he had a piano there, that we thought it was the wife of Sir Wilfred Laurier who was teaching piano, that probably had given it to us, to him. But we found out no, that was not the fact. But we found out also, and one of the oldest girl of my grandfather was a teacher. Madame Laurier teach her how to play piano. That gave us hope that the story is true, whatever the thing that he got from those people that Sir Laurier was really the truth.
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Title: The Babineau family
Description: Maurice Babineau talks about his grandfather, Narcisse Babineau, who settled in the region of Kedgwick, N.B., in 1916.
Subjects: families
Source: Connections Productions
Language: English
Date: 2007-03-06
Creator: Connections Productions
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