By Gwendolyn La Pointe

Maggie Dionne-Tyler was born and raised in Madawaska Maine in the heart of St. John Valley.   Although Madawaska is a community with a strong Acadian background, Maggieís ancestors came from Quebec, Ireland and France, rather than being Acadian.  There is a very strong agricultural heritage in Maggieís family. 

 Maggie was the middle child of a family of five and lived in Madawaska until she left home to attend college at the University of Maine. She is a 48 year old divorced mother of two and she holds a BS  in Physical Education and Biology and  a M.Ed In Adaptive P.E. and Special Education. She is in the process of earning a Certificate of Advanced study in Counselor Education. Maggie and I have known each other casually for a number of years as we are both long term employees of the Training & Development Corporation. 

Early in her career Maggie  taught Phys Ed for several years and held several other jobs before she came to TDC in 1980 as a Residential Advisor (R.A.) for dorm students at Penobscot Job Corps Center, in Bangor.  She  spent 19 years at Penobscot Job Corps  in a variety of positions, including Job Training Counselor, manager of several special projects, and Academic Manager.  She also spent one year as Director of Education and Training at Loring Job Corps Center  in Limestone, Maine.  Maggieís current job is with TDCís Career Advancement Division where she works as a job training counselor in the Migrant/Seasonal Farmworkers program.  In this job, she trains adults and youth from Maine's migrant population to support themselves without relying on seasonal farm work or work that has no benefits.

These are the bare facts about Maggieís life, but our interview explored much more than the facts can convey.  Maggie is energetic, articulate, and wonderfully self-aware when it comes to describing her experiences as a Franco-American woman. Iíll let Maggie tell her own story.

On Growing up in Madawaska: 

Born and bred in the St. John Valley.  I tell people [Iím] from the County but also from the Valley.  It is more important to be from the Valley than from the County because of the strong work ethic.  The town that I grew up in [Madawaska] was 99% French and Catholic...  I grew up in a very close, sheltered community, and it was a town of 5200.  The majority of the people either worked at the Frazier paper mill or they were potato farmers.  My motherís and fatherís families were in the potato business, so my dad was a potato grower.  So I started very young in the fields.  Knew very early what work was expected.  It was also viewed as fun when we harvested.  I still get the adrenaline rush in the fall when I feel like I need to be outside!

Growing up for 18 years and knowing nothing different, some of my best friends were first cousins, so the family was a big portion of what everyone was involved in.  Being a Catholic, everyone was involved in doing things with the family.  When something happened with another family, you knew about it.  Just looking on the street, you knew who belonged to whom, just by facial features.î

On the influence of the Catholic Church in her life

I grew up with a very vengeful God. A ëGod is going to get youí type thing.  I had nuns for teachers in grammar school. The church owned the schools, but they were public schools, so the influence of the Catholic Church was there as I was growing up.  The priest in Madawaska was a powerful person.  I can remember having sermons about the people in town, and you knew whom he was talking about and sometimes raging about.  The Church was involved in a lot of the town politics.  I thought they were one and the same until I entered high school. 

 We [had] catechism first thing every morning [in school], from eight to eight thirty; the Protestants did not come to school until 9:00. [They] were always waiting outside the door because we always had to do catechism.  If there was a religious holiday, we got those off.  If there was a Catholic movie that came into town, the whole school went.  The church ruled a lot of things and the holidays were big feast days.  I was in the Legion of Mary in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades.  That was a Catholic thing for girls.  You met with the nuns once a week and you did community projects; if a family needed help and they announced it in Church, we did that sort of thing.  I never grew up thinking that anyone else was any other religion.

On her parentís divorce.

Maggie was eight or nine when her parents divorced because of her fatherís alcoholism.  She related that her mother was one of the first women in the community who did not leave town when she divorced.  She instead spent three or four years obtaining a decree that she could divorce without being excommunicated from the Church.  Maggie remembers: ìI had friends tell me they could not play with me because I was from a divorced family.  Then I had to go back home and ask my mother ìWho is divorced?  Why wonít people play with me?í  In families, [divorce] was considered a sin.î

ì[My mother] was one of my role models; she was very strict and structured. [She had]  five of us in seven years.  She had three of us in diapers, three of us in grammar school, three of us in high school; we were always in threes.  So there was a closeness there , but it was difficult for her.  She remembers at confession she told the priest she used birth control and he would lambaste her, because that was against the Church.  But she said if she hadnít done it, then she would have had a baby every year.  My grandmother Dionne did have a baby every year for twenty years. ì
 

On speaking French, or not

ìWhen I started school, I just spoke French, I did not speak any English at all.  That was difficult because the nuns did not allow us to speak French.  I used to get hit with a ruler [for speaking French].  I really revolted a lot when I was young; I was a real hellion on wheels.  A lot of it was I did not understand the rules or why I was getting into trouble.  So when I was in first grade, my mother sent the three oldest, my sisters Diane, Jackie, and me to Portland to St. Josephís Academy to learn English because she did not want us to grow up and have others view us as stupid.  She knew the discrimination that French people got because she saw it.  ... I was there just a year.  It was different when I came back.  I was at the head of my class [then] because I knew English.î
 

On alcoholism

ìDrinking was really prevalent in Madawaska.  When I was in high school, in a span of one-half mile in downtown Madawaska there were twenty-two bars and taverns.  That is where the majority of the mill checks were cashed.  Some of the bars, although they did not announce it, used to be open all the time.  The first time I ever drank, I was twelve and that was in a potato house, because they had a still in there.  It was moonshine.  Almost killed me.  ëCause I drank it on a dare and three days later I was still hurting. 

A lot of family members were alcoholics.  A lot of family problems [were caused by] alcoholism.  I have three generations on each side  [of my family] who were alcoholics.  I am the only one out of my family of five that is an alcoholic, like my dad was.  I went through rehab last January.  After my divorce I started drinking and it was an escape, not knowing how to handle things.  I drank for only ten years but they were an awful ten years. [I realized] that I had to take care of myself too and that is a lot of what I did not do.  I have been sober  for ten months and it has been great.î

On discrimination

ìIt was only after I left Madawaska that I realized that discrimination existed against French people.  I was petrified when I left for college and my first two months at the University of Maine were terrible; I was very homesick.  I found myself by the cow barns because that reminded me of home.  In college when I took my first speech class is the first time that I felt badly about having an accent, being French, because I would sometimes mispronounce words.  I would put the accent on the different syllables and I had a teacher who picked on me because of that so... I got a ìDî in that course.  I took speech again with another person, which was much better, but that is the first time  that I really started working on trying to get rid of my accent.  It made me different and I did not want to be different.  I was definitely a country girl; there was no question about that.  The University of Maine was larger than my home town... like eight thousand.  I was always lost, and was afraid to ask for directions... because I didnít want to be laughed at.  A lot of people were like îOh, you Frenchî.  That would put me off from asking questions ëcause so many people pointed out my French accent to me.  I didnít push my Frenchness at all in college.  I didnít join any Franco-American groups, [although] they had them there.  When I was in grad school, they had a Franco-American club and I was a part of that.  I knew I could walk in there at any time and start a conversation in French, with someone I did not know.  The first thing they would say was ëwhere are you fromí and I would start talking, and right away we had relatives in common.

 I grew up in an environment where French was OK because the whole place was French.  then I met people from Lewiston, Auburn, and Biddeford who had different opinions about French [people].  I had actually heard someone say that French people [were] the ìniggers of Maineî.  I remember getting very angry inside and being very offended but not saying anything.  Like, ìHow dare they?î.... When I met the Franco community in [those mill towns] that was the first  I heard that they were considered  the poor uneducated people of Maine.  That pissed me off because my people were very educated.  Education was very important, looking good and presenting yourself [was very important].  The word ìniggerî was never allowed up north.  That was just a very derogatory term; it was during civil rights , but it was one of those words that werenít allowed in my house.  To hear that my culture was equated to that really hurt.

When I got married my husband did not want me to speak French to my kids, did not want my kids to grow up bilingual.  To me that was a put down.î
 

On her children

ìThe nicest thing I ever did for myself was to have babies.  I had Libby when I was thirty -four and Ben when I was thirty-six.  I am divorced; married a jerk but  I did not know that at the time.  They are good kids.  ... I complain about [my own Catholic] schooling, but I have had them go to Catholic school here.  It costs alot, and here I complained about my upbringing, but as things happened to me growing up, I felt that I had a backbone; I grew up having faith, having hope.

I am bringing up my son differently than my brother was brought up.  I think my brother has a disadvantage in life.  He was catered to [because he was a boy].  Ben is not being catered to.  Ben is valuing females for who and what they are.  I think my feminism is not so much like staying there in support; itís more so what I am doing with my kids.  [Teaching] that there should be equality and that education should go to everybody.

My kids do not have the [strong family support system] that I had.  They meet up with their first cousins and it is like ì Hi, how are you?î.  Whereas when I meet up with my first cousins itís like ìOh, do you remember when ...?î.  We grew up and went to high school together.  [My kids] donít have that, the three generations.

I always try to [take my children] up to Madawaska for the Acadian festival every summer because I want them to see that thatís a part of what they are and who they are.  I value my French language; I value the culture we have.î

On womenís roles

ì I grew up knowing that women were secondary.  I got a full scholarship to go to school, but I know if I hadnít gone to school, it would have been OK with [my mother]  But if my brother had not gone to school, that would have been terrible because he was going to be the head of a family.  I remember one time in fourth or fifth grade, she said ëIím not going to send you girls to school but I will send your brotherí.  I got really resentful about that, that I wouldnít get the same as boys.   By the time I got to college, I resented the fact that as a woman it was harder, and also, I resented the church, that they did not value women.  Out of five kids I am the only one who is still with the Church.  I kind of dropped it for twenty years, but  I went back, but I am still very resentful of the way they treat women.  That goes way back to what Mom went through, just getting a divorce and having to work at staying in town.

I think I noticed the discrimination more against women, than I did against [French] culture.  I know when my brother graduated [from college] he was viewed as being successful.  When I graduated from college, well ëyou are just going to get marriedí.  Which I didnít.  All five kids went to college.  Three of us have our Masters and I have my C.A.S., so education is a life-long thing for us.

There is no question in my mind that a woman can do anything she wants.  I think we are our own worst enemies sometimes.  [Growing up], I picked potatoes, I rolled barrels, I drove a truck, ëcause you worked on a farm, everybody helped.  At that point I did not see the differentiation. The first I really felt it  was when I went to the University of Maine and I was a Phys. Ed. major.  It was the girls and it was the boys.  A Phys Ed major that was a guy got much more respect.  That is why I [eventually] stopped teaching Phys Ed. I was the low person on the totem pole in the school system and I did not like that at all.î

On being a caretaker

ìI was the caretaker in the family and I still am.  That was a big role that women played  up there ... you were the caretaker in the family. That was the expectation.  I am still the one that goes up [to visit Mom] the most during the year. When I was a senior in high school, she collapsed with an aneurysm in her head, so she was gone for ten months.  She came home two days before my graduation, but I saw her once during that time.  The one time she did not know us at all ícause she had to relearn how to read and to walk.  That whole year, my younger brother and sister and  I lived alone in the house while my two older sisters went to college.  There was no D.H.S. in those days so we were left alone. I had a job and so did my brother.  So we used that to live on.  A lot of [my caretaking role] came from that time because when she came back, the roles were reversed.  I am the one that became the parent and she was a twelve year old child.  We had to do her exercises and get her out of bed.  She brought me up well, because I could discipline her then.î

On family values

ìI had a really good childhood, even though we were not rich, we did not have a lot.  I never look back and say ëgee, I didnít get this, I didnít get that.í  I never went without; I thank my mother an awful lot for the way she brought us up. I felt as if, as a woman growing up in a French culture, that we were the backbone of that culture.  That is something that I picked up from my mother.  Because you had kids you could never give up.  You never did things for yourself, you did them for other people.  Kids were valued; people were valued.  The value system is there, and the belief that you are here for a reason.  I tell people that you can believe that things can be OK, and that things happen for a reason.î

On her present job

ìDoing this job, with seasonal farm workers I am more into my culture than ever because of the agricultural background that I have  It has been very helpful, in appreciating the people that I work with, because it is a lost population (the agricultural population) So this has been like going back home.  Of course they donít speak French, but that is OK.  I really find myself being more of an advocate of kids that come from that background, but I think a lot of it is because I did that too.  It has been a good match, being here [in this job].î