Interview with Marie Odelie Bourassa (Adeline Marie)
By Brenda Dufour
FAS230, Fall 2011
I was born on January 18th, 1908 in St. Hermenegilde, in
the Province of Quebec, Canada as the third child of Sinar
(Samuel) and Lumenia (Bailli) Bourassa. In the dead of
winter, my family moved to the Lisbon Falls, Maine area
traveling in a wagon with everything we had. My father was
to work in the mill there as a sawmill operator.
We arrived and moved into a French-Canadian community and
lived over a bottle store. My mother stayed at home to care
for the family. They made an odd couple as she was
six-feet-tall while my father was five-feet-tall. My
brother Peter was the oldest born in 1904 followed by my
sister Isabella in 1905. Marie was the first born in the
United States in 1910 followed by Jean and Alphonse the
twins born in 1911,, Oscar in 1912, Roseanna in 1914,
Lester in 1915, and an unnamed boy in 1916.
We were poor but I did not know it. I remember reaching
into a hole in the window of the bottle store and grabbing
some bottles which I took into the store and sold. Down the
street I ran with my pennies and bought a bag of penny
candy. As I was walking back home, here came my mom with
her big strides. She grabbed me and the bag of candy and
off I went into the house with my feet in mid-air.
We attended school at the local Catholic school where we
all spoke French. No one around spoke English. The families
brought their place with them from Canada and made the new
place similar. We ate creton and tortiere along with other
French meals.
The twins caught the flu and died at the age of
two-months-old. My dad made two small coffins and the boys
had pennies put on their eyes to keep them closed. We were
Catholic and the local cemetery allowed you to bury babies
free along the fence. Another boy died the same day he was
born in 1916.
My mother became pregnant again and she went to a black
doctor to get medicine to lose the baby in 1918. She
hemorrhaged to death. My father took Pete with him to work
in the woods and my mother’s mother came to take care of
us. That did not last for long. We were taken up on the
altar at the end of Mass and offered for adoption. Isabella
and I were not adopted so we were taken by train to a
Catholic orphanage in Boston. We were separated and
punished if we spoke French but we did not know English. We
were taught to knit and crochet and sent out to local
families as help. I was ten years old. My real name was
Odelie but he priest who took us to the convent
misunderstood and I was called Adeline. He also got my
birthday wrong and I celebrated it on the 18th for many
years. Mostly I went by the name Babe.
Isabella hated moving into homes and doing work so she kept
running away. The last time she ran away, she said that if
they sent her back she would jump off the Charles River
Bridge. One day the nuns came and told me she was dead. I
ran away and returned to Maine at the age of twelve.
I could not find my family but I stayed in the area. I
moved to Brunswick and worked as a maid and cook in rich
peoples’ homes. I was lonely and I met a boy in the park.
He was wearing a letter jacket. He offered to let me wear
it if we had sex. I did not really know much about that but
I wanted to wear that jacket so I said yes. His name was
Wilfred Lavigne and he was cute. I ended up pregnant and I
told him. His father said marry me or join the service. He
joined the Navy.
I had a daughter, Doris. I found someone to watch her and I
continued to work. I remade clothes given to me as discards
from some of the families and kept her dressed. It was hard
during the depression. I stood in milk and bread lines and
I made do. Eventually I went out with a man named Radley.
Those Radleys were strange. I got pregnant and was arrested
for being pregnant without being married. I was put into a
cottage at the Skowhegan Prison for Women. Doris was put in
a foster home on a farm in the country. When Loretta was a
year old, she joined Doris. I got out of prison but the
only way I could get my children back was to get married.
Wilfred got out of the Navy and we got married in 1931. He
claimed Doris but not Loretta but I was able to get both
children back. Eventually I had Winifred Annette in 1935.
She weighed four pounds and we kept her in a box by the
stove to keep her warm. An old Indian woman told me to feed
her barley water. All my children were born at home with a
mid-wife. I had birthed many children for people over the
years.
We both worked in the shipyard in Bath during the War. He
was a welder and so was I. I had gained weight by then and
one day after crawling way into the hold to weld, I got
stuck and had to be cut out. I used to use the twine from
the shipyard to crochet clothes for my girls.
When Annette was ten, Wilfred made a pass at Loretta and I
left him. We moved to Portland and I worked in the shoe
shop. The girls went to school. Doris graduated and got a
job too. Loretta started acting out. She would skip school
and walk all over Portland. She loved nature and I think if
I had lived in the country, she would have been okay. She
was a beautiful girl. Once Doris hooked her up on a double
date. They rode around in a boat in Deering Oaks Park. Her
date put his arm around her and she put her heels through
the bottom of the boat and walked home. I made Doris quit
work to watch her but that did not work. Eventually the
state took her and put her in AMHI.
Doris and I would visit her in Augusta. I tried to get her
closer but could not. When he had just turned eighteen, the
police came and said she was dying. It was a cold, rainy
April day and the window was open. He had a hole in the
side of her head but I was told that she had pneumonia. I
tried to move her but did not have the money. When she
died, AMHI did the autopsy.
Eventually, both girls married and left. I continued to
work in the shoe shop
for many years. I never returned to Canada but I still have
an accent. It is not too amazing as I have lived near
French speaking people most of my life.