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QAHN HERITAGE PHOTO AND ESSAY CONTESTS $10 Quebec HeritageVOL 13, NO. 1 WINTER 2019 News Contested Ground Controversial Archeology in Gatineau and Montreal Lost by a Hare Chasing the Eastern Townships’ Elusive Witch Letters From Miss Edgar’s Marie Mack Writes Home during WWI QUEBEC HERITAGE NEWS CONTENTS Quebec HeritageNews Editor’s desk 3 Building on Ghosts Rod MacLeod EDITOR RODERICK MACLEOD Hindsight 5 PRODUCTION The Memory of That Place Dorothy Williams DAN PINESE; MATTHEW FARFAN QAHN News 6 PUBLISHER Matthew Farfan QUEBEC ANGLOPHONE HERITAGE NETWORK Heritage in Brief 8 400-257 QUEEN STREET Kenogami Cemetery Margaret Mitchell Bernard SHERBROOKE, QUEBEC J1M 1K7 Donors and Dreamers 9 PHONE The Culture of Gratitude: Donor Stewardship Heather Darch 1-877-964-0409 (819) 564-9595 FAX Digs at Gatineau 10 (819) 564-6872 Roger Fleury (with the CORRESPONDENCE collaboration of Wes Darou) [email protected] Traces of Charity 13 WEBSITES QAHN.ORG St. Bridget’s Refuge Sandra Stock QUEBECHERITAGEWEB.COM 100OBJECTS.QAHN.ORG Beresford Township, St. Agathe 18 Joseph Graham PRESIDENT GRANT MYERS The Witch of New Mexico Road 19 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Irish Folklore in the Eastern Townships Grant Myers MATTHEW FARFAN PROJECT DIRECTORS Letters from 507 Guy Street 22 DWANE WILKIN Ginette Guy HEATHER DARCH RODERICK MACLEOD CHRISTINA ADAMKO 2018 QAHN Heritage Photo Contest Winners 25 BOOKKEEPER MARION GREENLAY 2018 QAHN Heritage Essay Contest Winners 28 Quebec Heritage News is published Review 30 quarterly by QAHN with the support of the Department of Canadian Heritage. Life at the Mill: Through the Mill by Gail Cuthbert Brandt Sandra Stock QAHN is a non-profit and non-partisan organization whose mission is to help advance knowledge of the history and culture of the English-speaking communities of Quebec. Annual Subscription Rates: Individual: $30.00; Institutional: $40.00; Family: $40.00; Student: $20.00. Cover: “Indians Paying Homage to Spirit of the Chaudière,” Canada Post Publication Mail c.1933, by Charles William Jefferys (1869-1951). Agreement Number 405610004. Watercolour over pencil. Library and Archives Canada. ISSN 17707-2670 PRINTED IN CANADA 2 WINTER 2019 EDITOR’S DESK Building on Ghosts by Rod MacLeod ne thing I’ve learned from lying just under the surface. The Protes- the years. But there are certain sites that Hollywood movies is that tant Burying Ground further east was al- just seem to call out for sensitive treat- you should never, ever build so developed as a park (Dufferin ment. Hospitals and jails may well be Oover a graveyard. They don’t Square), even though almost all the bod- appropriate candidates for redevelop- like it, you see, those people buried be- ies were removed before hand – though ment as housing or offices, but surely it low. Sometimes they come up and do a few were discovered when they built should be done with reverence. nasty things to the people foolish Complexe Guy Favreau in the 1970s and I wrote a couple of years ago of the enough to live in whatever is built on the a few more found under the street during importance of respecting the site of the graveyard – I mean really nasty, like recent repairs to René Levesque Boule- Montreal Children’s Hospital (“Remem- yanking little blonde girls through the vard. I must confess that, in all the bering an old children,” QHN Summer television or making T-bone steaks crawl happy hours I have spent in the Guy 2015), arguing that a place of such in- by themselves across the kitchen count- Favreau building, I never saw a ghost – trinsic sadness (and, yes, joy – but that’s er. In any case, it’s just not worth the although the Department of Canadian the other side of the same coin) should risk. Heritage has recently moved from there be preserved regardless of architectural The custodians of Montreal’s old for reasons that may, or may not, have to merit because there is something sacred Protestant and about it. Or at the Catholic cemeter- very least, that its ies did not have spirit should be the benefit of such preserved and re- graphic imagery in spected. Over the the 1860s, yet they last few months I were sensitive to have been moni- popular feeling toring the steady about building demolition of the over cemeteries, old Children’s although in a with a heavy moment of insani- heart. First of all, ty the Fabrique of it’s bloody sad. Notre-Dame did Waiting for a bus get architect Henri on the other side Maurice Perrault of Tupper Street, to design a plan I’ve watched the for the subdivision cranes claw of the St. Antoine doggedly through burial ground into the soft brown building lots, but brick of the soon came to their senses. (No one do with increased sightings of crawling Children’s, the gaping void spreading wants to live over a cemetery, the former steaks. from the former Emergency entrance on head of the Cartothèque at the Archives It is possible that the presence or my left all the way to Atwater Avenue Nationales told me many years ago absence of bodies makes a difference if on my right – and, of course, extending when showing me this plan, a “duh!” one is contemplating building over a several fathoms down into the earth. clearly implied.) Instead, they turned the cemetery. Yet we are also sensitive to the There is now nothing left of the hospital space into a park, to be known as idea of living where people died, or even but the original annex from 1912, Dominion Square since Confederation where they experienced pain; certainly supposedly slated for preservation in was in the works. Monuments have been many ghost stories involve revenants whatever new structure emerges. built on this ground, along with benches who haunt such places. Now, from a Yeah, maybe. The odds of anything and a Vespasian, but nothing you would building developer’s point of view, it of the old Children’s surviving are slim really live in. That is possibly why there may be impractical to take every bit of a – and even if the annex doesn’t succumb aren’t many ghost stories connected with site’s history into consideration; there to developmental greed, the spirit will be the square (now “Place du Canada”) are surely few urban spaces that have gone. People have been pointing out the despite the reputedly 40,000 bodies still not witnessed some sort of trauma over need for community facilities in this Baffling billboards. Photo: Rod MacLeod. 3 QUEBEC HERITAGE NEWS socially problematic neighbourhood: affordable housing would be ideal, or a community centre, or even a drop-in centre. Hey, maybe a school. But the ar- chitects’ renditions show three or four sleek glass skyscrapers, obviously in- tended for high-end condos. All very nice in their slick way, but just not appropriate. What’s worse is the sales pitch. I might have preferred total ignorance, marketing the condos using a nice- sounding if meaningless name – like Victoria on the Park, an actual condo de- velopment that advertises widely and confidently despite being neither on idyllic situation one might experience Victoria Square nor on a Park. But the living there: “le rouge profond d’un Bor- marketers of the Children’s site have deaux en 5 à 7” (a deep red Bordeaux opted to exploit its former name, albeit during happy hour) or “le noir d’un tat- by throwing logic, and reverence, too plein de souvenirs” (a black tattoo enthusiastically to the wind. filled with memories). I was a bit dis- This project is officially called turbed by the “s’illuminer devant les “Square Children’s” – meaning that’s its joues roses de sa petite-fille” (light up at name in French. I made fun before of the the sight of your little girl’s pink former hospital for calling itself “Le cheeks), which seemed to be an oddly Children,” but this goes one worse, in- contrived reference to a child, in igno- volving two English words that make no rance of the thousands of hospitalized sense in English. Where to begin? To children whose cheeks were likely not point out that most children are not all that rosy – or far too rosy to be square (in either in geometrical or the healthy. More disturbing was the slogan 1950s hipster sense) would be pedantic. that appeared to explain the theme: “re- were originally calling for. I don’t think To say that four glass towers cannot be a donnons des couleurs à notre quartier” it is too late to incorporate some low- square (unlike Cabot Square, a real (let’s bring colours back to our neigh- cost housing into the plans or even a space, which would lie in front of the bourhood). Oh, I see: having a children’s service centre at ground level. But sim- condo like a cathedral parvis) would hospital around kind of sucked the life ply throwing around the word “children” probably be wasting breath, since these out of the neighbourhood, and it’s now in the marketing campaign to score lame days words mean just what marketers up to the yuppies to rejuvenate the place. historical points is just wrong. Building choose them to mean. And don’t get me Divorced of context, these images and over other people’s sadness should be started on that apostrophe! Idiocy slogans are just corny; given the sacred done with extreme reverence. notwithstanding, the name Square Chil- nature of this space they are offensive. Or it could come back to haunt you. dren’s might have worked well if ap- I hope this project manages to in- plied to a school or community centre, clude as many community service com- suggesting that young people would be ponents as the community advocates welcome.