Those Fabulous Gaspé Fiddlers
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T HOSE F ABULOUS G ASPÉ F IDDLERS $10 Quebec VOL 6, NO. 5 SPRING 2012 HeritageNews Putting Heritage at the Top of Our Agenda Interview with Michael Fish 1812 and All That Exploring a 200-year-old Conflict Come to the Congrès The Fédération Histoire Québec Meets in Sherbrooke, May 2012 QUEBEC HERITAGE NEWS Quebec CONTENTS HeritageNews EDITOR Editor’s Desk 3 RODERICK MACLEOD Jimmy Darou and Carole too Rod MacLeod PRODUCTION DAN PINESE Letters 5 Canada before its time James Brierley PUBLISHER Internment no haven Sheila Eskenazi THE QUEBEC ANGLOPHONE HERITAGE NETWORK Mystery Photo 5 400-257 QUEEN STREET SHERBROOKE, QUEBEC J1M 1K7 Timelines 6 Fairbairn’s final renovations PHONE Quebec’s Morrin Centre wins award 1-877-964-0409 New Outaouais Museum Network Nick Seebruch (819) 564-9595 Minutes on the War of 1812 Elise Cotter FAX Dying of neglect: the burial grounds of West Bolton John Fowles (819) 564-6872 Expansion on the horizon at the Eaton Corner Museum Nick Seebruch CORRESPONDENCE [email protected] Interview: Michael Fish 12 WEBSITES Putting heritage at the top of our agenda Matthew Farfan WWW.QAHN.ORG The Saddest Fire 14 WWW.QUEBECHERITAGEWEB.COM Tragedy at the Laurier Theatre, 1927 Rohinton Ghandhi 47th Annual Meeting of the Fédération Histoire Québec 16 PRESIDENT 2012 Congrès in Sherbrooke KEVIN O’DONNELL That Gaspé Sound 18 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR & The old-time fiddle traditions of the Gaspé coast Glenn Patterson WEBMAGAZINES EDITOR 1812 23 MATTHEW FARFAN A war of islands and rivers, Part II Sandra Stock Millwrights and Migrants 26 OFFICE MANAGER The Argenteuil’s early entrepreneurs Joseph Graham KATHY TEASDALE Proof of pedigree 28 Quebec Heritage News is produced four The United Empire Loyalists’ Association in Quebec Mark W. Gallop, UE times yearly by the Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network (QAHN) with the support Reviews 30 of the Department of Canadian Heritage and Quebec’s Ministère de la Culture et The Magnificent Land Matthew Farfan des Communications. QAHN is a non-profit Eeyou Istchee by Louise Abbott & Niels Jensen and non-partisan umbrella organization whose mission is to help advance knowl- edge of the history and culture of the English-speaking communities of Quebec. Annual Subscription Rates: Individual: $30.00; Organization: $40.00 Cover photo: Erskine Morris and his fiddle, Wakeham, Quebec. Canada Post Publication Mail Agreement Number 405610004. Photo: courtesy of Brian Morris. ISSN 17707-2670 PRINTED IN CANADA 2 SPRING 2012 EDITOR’S DESK Jimmy Darou and Carole too by Rod MacLeod ust like the way your bum leaves penser with its space-age silver knob And it was a family business: Bud- an impression on a vinyl seat was out of order and the white-hatted ning’s daughter Carole studied pharmacy cushion after you stand up, so does guy had to pour me a glass from a carton and worked alongside the master for a memory press into your mind: he took out of the fridge. many years. When he died in the late Jit’s an imperfect version, and it gradual- That was Berke’s Drug Store, not to 1990s, Carole took the helm of Bud- ly fades, but until that time you are left be confused (although I did confuse it) ning’s and kept it going; it is now in its with a trace of what went on. with the jewelry store downtown where 65th year. She, too, has a knack for ex- OK, so that sentence may not win my uncle worked. But the days of soda plaining little multicoloured pills and Metaphor of the Year award, but it does fountains and (alas) “doughnuts” were how they can affect your life, and on at allow me to talk about memories of quickly fading, and one day Berke’s was least one occasion has given me a clear- vinyl barstools, as well as changing gone – or rather it moved a couple of er understanding of what a certain medi- streetscapes, where I used cine might be seeking to to get my car fixed, and cure than I had received my favourite pharmacist. from the doctor who had I am just old enough made out the prescription. to remember the old drug The Budning reputation store on our main street is such that many people (Westminster in Montreal who no longer live in West) with its soda count- Montreal West still have er supporting clear plastic their medication sent to domes full of doughnuts them from Carole’s hum- (when they took the ble counter. In the last “ugh” out of “doughnut” years of his life, my fa- a whole lot of flavour was ther had his impressive lost), boxy spring-loaded array of pills delivered napkin dispensers, and, as regularly from Budning’s often as not, the elbows to his senior’s home in of the guy in a white shirt Westmount, a municipali- and crisp white hat who ty not known for its would serve you if he no- dearth of pharmacies. ticed you. In front of this Until a couple of counter were half a dozen years ago, a business with stools shaped like black kettle drums doors down to a spanking new building an even more remarkable pedigree than (yes, with vinyl seats) which you could and reinvented itself as Budning’s Phar- Budning’s stood just across the street. twist a half turn in either direction as macy. The business took itself more seri- Gas stations don’t normally find them- you sat before they swung you back to ously now, and if it lost the soda crowd selves on anyone’s list of heritage build- face the counter again. I’m not old it gained a loyal following of people of ings, yet “Jimmy Darou’s” was a fixture enough to remember having met anyone all ages who needed what it had to offer. on Westminster for four decades and, socially at this drug store counter – not Although Budning’s did sell greeting like Budning’s, had a charm and a sense the guys for cokes on hot Saturday after- cards and kleenex, the main focus was of dedication that more than made up for noons, not the girl down the street for a drugs; there were no bar stools, and what its unprepossessing aesthetics. daring single ice-cream float with two went over the counter wasn’t milk or Born Thomas Harold Darou, the en- straws – for the counter was gone before hotdogs but over-the-counter drugs. trepreneur’s fame came less from what- I was up for any of that. (Alas, by the When it came to prescriptions, you ever mechanical savvy he may have had time I was, fast food was as romantic as found that Mr B himself, a large, jovial than from his widely respected drive to it got – not that I remember complain- gent, had a knack for explaining the way be useful when others in his situation ing.) My only memory of actually pa- that what you had to take would work might have despaired. A Montreal jock- tronizing that drug store counter was without sounding like a tape recording. ey, “Jimmy” Darou was thrown from a stopping there one day for hotdogs with He seemed to care about his clients, both horse in a race at Blue Bonnets in 1933 my father, probably coming back from a as a good professional and as a member and was paralysed from the neck down. ball game, and being hugely disappoint- of the community – which he was: he For several years, according to The ed to find that the big shiny milk dis- and his family lived just up the street. Montreal Gazette, Darou rarely left his “Jimmy Darou’s Filling Station, May 1938,” Conrad Poirier 3 Collection, Bibliothèque et archives nationales du Québec. QUEBEC HERITAGE NEWS room in the Prevost Sanitorium, his the building was remodelled to sport the in the provincial archives after his death main source of distraction being the ra- modern Texaco logo, which had bought in 1968, and his views of Montreal life dio. One of his favourite shows was out the Indian Oil Company. during the middle decades of the twenti- NBC’s “Don McNeill’s Breakfast Club,” From the beginning, Jimmy Darou’s eth century, including plenty of shots of a zany compilation of comedy acts fea- attracted the attention of another photog- the Canadiens in action, can be viewed turing such regulars as Fibber McGee rapher who had less international clout at www.banq.qc.ca. and Molly. (My parents grew up with than Life’s but a solid place in Quebec Darou was an old man by the time I this stuff and often referred to my bed- history. Conrad Poirier, who lived one was growing up, but in more recent room-cleaning skills as being like those street over from Westminster in Montre- years I got to know his successors over of Fibber McGee, who apparently had a al West, had taken to photographing all-too-frequent visits. Dave Weigens- closet that dumped an avalanche of junk people going about their daily business berg bought the gas station from Darou on him whenever he opened when the latter retired in it.) the mid-1970s, and when The other radio person- Dave retired two decades ality Darou loved was later his son Joel took over. “Cheerio,” whose soothing Joel closed the gas part of voice reached across the the business and focused on continent from San Francis- car repair, in which field of co’s KPO (an affiliate of expertise he was a certifi- NBC). Cheerio’s real name able genius.