An Immigrant’s Son recalls the World as it once was – Part#2

Maybe, French-Canadians are not as friendly as we could be, but shoppers and retail store owners in downtown Lowell are not always warm and friendly to us, either. Maybe, we still have much to learn from each other if we are to become better?

Strangers all around us

All these others, the foreigners, who also walk our streets, and who let their children play freely in our public parks can cause friction just because they are different in so many obvious ways. Maybe, people like us fear some of these strangers just as much as these strangers fear and distrust us, the French-Canadians? Lowell can be a fragile mix of apparent peace and troubling, internal anxieties.

With all these distinct differences, how can Canucks really fit into the world of non-Canucks? My Mom has related to me many frightening stories from her own growing up years in the city from 1910 through the turbulent 1930s. These tales would easily curl the socks off any decent, well-bred and industrious, Catholic girl or boy leaving the safe and pleasant environment of a parochial school setting. Of course, Protestants were just as scary as the Jews, Portuguese, Irish and Greeks. There were fewer Lithuanians and Poles in circulation at that time, so they were somehow less scary, and, besides, they were also Catholics.

My Mom has certain terms that neatly refer to these alien outsiders such as: les juifs, les portuguais, les irlandais and les grecs. But, to be fair, these French terms don’t have an insulting tone attached to them. Of course, I also occasionally overhear talk of a blockhead for a Pole, a chink for a Chinese person, a spic for an Italian, a mick for an Irishman and a Yankee for someone, who might have established residence in these parts at the time of Miles Standish. But, these slurs are not very vicious. Rather, we find them entertaining, although a bit insensitive in some cases.

During the war years, Jap and Kraut were favorites of many a dining room conversation, but I don’t recall what the English soldiers were called. Being allies of Britain, we probably just let them be. But, the Russians, they were the Russkies, and never the Bolsheviks, of course. Our regional appreciation of Russian culture and recent history remained quite narrow.

Certain cultural stories get passed down from generation to generation, and become part of the colorful, local culture. These tales and sagas of old become enshrined in the malleable, young and nubile brains of youngsters, the boys and girls, who, tomorrow, will become the new fabric, the parents of our world. The Lowell story spells out interesting tidbits of this process. This acculturation process is fascinating.

From my female relatives, especially, my Mom and two aunts, Lida and Florence, I learned early on that:

1. a) “Irish women don’t know how to keep a clean house. And, they also don’t know how to cook.”

1. b) “Poles or Pollocks are, sometimes, called blockheads. They are naturally dumb.”

1. c) “The poor (of all types) always get the shitty end of the stick.”

1. d) “Some day, my ship will come in.” – There may be hope after all.

1. e) “Years ago, the Irish kids would throw rocks at the French-Canadian kids crossing the Bridge Street Bridge as they were walking home to Centralville on their side of the Merrimack.” Her own parents had passed this information down to her from the 1890 to 1900 time period.

1. f) “The mill bosses would spit on us factory workers as we walked down the creaky, spiral stairs on our way home.” My aunt, Florence, who worked in the textile mills for some years, made this comment to my mother as I overheard one more kitchen tabletop conversation. My Mom never worked in the mills herself. She was the daughter of a modest and successful milk delivery businessman. There, however, she had an opportunity to participate in a retail environment where she easily made her way in life before meeting my father.

I don’t know how I could go about checking up on these local stories. Could I possibly come across articles in the daily Lowell Sun newspaper corroborating these stories? A young newsboy riding a second-hand bike and wearing clean, but not fashionable clothes, can not easily go from house to house in various neighborhoods authenticating this material. Maybe, these kitchen table tales are true, however, finding evidence to support them seems beyond my abilities.

But, I do recall clearly hearing my grandfather, Pépère Paul Charbonneau, speaking with admiration of hard-working, Jewish businessmen in Lowell and, a year or two later, with anger and vitriol at Jews, in general. These two conflicting sets of feelings confuse me. They set me to wondering why adults have such gut-level responses? Sometimes, it just does not make any sense at all.

A few years ago, just before he died in 1948, Pépère Charbonneau said to my Mom in our kitchen,

“The only mistake Hitler ever made was that he didn’t kill enough Jews.”

Here, we have a hard-working businessman, honest and even charitable to many people crushed by the Great Depression express this type of anger. Why? Maybe, struggling folks from competing ethnic groups simply and naturally hate and distrust one another? Could this statement be proof positive of a Darwinian, cold-blooded, evolutionary response to Mother Nature harsh challenges? Suddenly, I now don’t understand my own family history anymore. Were do these waves of anger come from?

As for me, I tend to find these foreign folks really quite interesting. Our own immediate neighborhood of Lower Centaville (this part of town has several spellings) has one black (we call them Negro) family, a young Jewish family, an Italian family and two Greek families living close by. Although we don’t often think about these differences, we curiously seem to foster the idea of an almost- integrated neighborhood. Usually, we get along just fine.

Often, I enjoy a rich exchange of ideas and impressions with Harry Levine, the owner of the upscale variety store, whose house/store is located just across the street from our first-floor, tenement-block apartment at the corner of Ludlam and Dana streets. According to my Mom, he is always ‘le juif’, the Jew, although, now and then, he is simply Harry. The thought that in life, we are all in this experience together remain a concept quite removed from our day-to-day experience.

Then, there is our next-door neighbor, Nick, and his beautiful dark-haired wife, a young and attractive, working couple of Greek origin. These people keep their clapboard, Victorian house and surrounding lawns with separate garages in excellent condition. An old, three-foot high picket fence separates our living spaces. Religion and financial status keep us firmly apart although we remain quite civil with one another.

End of Part #2

My Mom usually refers to this couple and the other Greek couple, who rents an apartment located on the second floor of this large house as ‘le grec’ or ‘les grecs’- ‘the Greek or the Greeks.’ Foreigners, and especially non-Catholic strangers remain suspect. There may be danger here. These people are different and, perhaps, not trustworthy. We should proceed with care and caution!

Next, comes the Antifenario family, an Italian and Catholic ensemble to a fault. They now live two houses up the street from us, but it was only a few years ago that they were renting the second floor apartment in our, large three-family manse. Joe and Emily Antifenario and their three children are great. In the summer, we often share an improvised, Dana Street, baseball diamond with these kids plus other children in the neighborhood. Donald Bergeron, Leonie Vallois and Claire Beauparlant usually also participate in our makeshift games. In this relaxed situation, there is no sense of “we” against “them”. All is well.

That black kid in our neighborhood

The Negro family located about one block away from my home remains a special case. Their one-family, white clapboard house is located on a pleasant lot with trees and grass at the corner of Aiken Street and Cumberland Road. A white picket fence surrounds the small, but attractive setting. A teenage boy and his younger sister live there with their mother. We seldom see this quiet, skinny boy in our immediate neighborhood. Several times over the years, my Mom has said to me at the kitchen table,

“Ce jeune nègre est très malade. Il a une maladie de sang qui afflige

les nègres. Il va probablement mourir de ça.”

“That young, black boy is very sick. he has an illness of the blood that afflicts blacks. He will probably die from it.”

I feel very sad. That is awful to think that soon this young boy may see his last summer days. There is much sadness in our world.

Finally, I would certainly be remiss if I did not include a mention of my mother’s romantic interlude with her boyfriend and dance partner for several years, Francis Murphy. This heart-warming tryst of mutual admiration, dance fervor and devotion took place during my Mom’s post high-school years while she was still living at home with her father and step-mother, Elizabeth on Hildreth Street near McPherson’s Park.

These two young people, who shared a special attachment, had first met on the dance floor at the huge ballroom by the water’s edge at Lakeview in Dracut. However, Pépère and Mémère, her parents, simply could not accept that Francis, an Irishman, might wish to marry Claire, my mother-to-be.

A mixed marriage, maybe?

All romantic and domestic plans and hopes that they had built around this Irish-Canuck connection had to be tossed out the window. No further discussion was allowed. Marriage was out! Certainly, a successful French-Canadian businessman and his wife could not entertain a mixed marriage like this one. Such ties were not entwined! In a sense society would not have it.

Over the years, my Mom and Francis remained friends, but the mores of the times required obedience to the rules. As for me, I have seen so many photos of Francis in my mother’s photo album that I somehow believe that I know him. Real life is so different from our imagined life in dreams.

How will these stories of European immigrants, trashy, tenement block living conditions, ethnic misunderstandings, broken dreams and tentative connections with people, who are different in so many ways, finally evolve? Maybe, the 1950s will be the decade of people better understanding other people? That would be cause for hope.

Oil drenched and interracial working conditions

Today, as I walk down Moody Street toward City Hall in “Little Canada” I realize that Lowell’s cultural situation can readily become gurgling with emotions bubbling over to a boil as these many strangers are made to work together within the very tight confines of the textile mills. This oil-drenched, clanking world of machinery is where they must compete to earn their daily bread. But, there are more laborers than jobs. Someone will be left with an empty lunch bucket. A family with a working parent, who is unemployed, must face harsh realities and a meager cupboard. Who can help these near indigent people?

Many years ago, the shop-floor straw bosses overseeing the gritty, grimy workers plus their gritty, grimy and noisy machinery were usually brought in by the factory owners to blend these factors of production into a profitable business. I hope to never end up in these sweatshops, but maybe I will. Then what?

Fortunately, today, with President Eisenhower ably steering the country into a new era of prosperity, some of the textile operatives (women factory workers, who are manually involved in running the meshing, rotating gears and revolving pulleys of clanking metallic parts) sometimes can reach first-line management positions, so there is restrained optimism among the day laborers

However, class distrust and conflicts remain, and a new title of first level supervisor does not make for instant happiness. Still, perhaps, as we are forced by industry to work together over the coming years, we will slowly become more open to cultural understanding. Maybe, we will even get to like one another?

[END]

Reference:

Pépère mémère

Pepere memere