Celia Hinque Charpentier
were in the other room. I don't remember how man\' students but I remember the class was full. I didn't · get much help from the reacher because she was so busy with other grades. l tl1ink a lot of kids stopped school around Grade 8, and many went to work, like I did. I worked in a boarding house in New Westminster helping with cooking and doing cleaning. I got paid $15 a month. That was a good wage then. I worked there for twoand-a-half years, then decided to get married. I had met Barr in 1932 when he came back from the
Born and raised in Ponteix, Sask., where her father cofounded Notre Dame d' Auvergm: parish, Celia Hinque Charpentier was a teenager when she came to Maillardvillc in 1930. She was accompanied by her older sister, Bertha, and her brother-in-law, Albert Desautels. Her sister had cared tor her since their mother's death, when Celia was onlv two years old. Her brother-in-law was too sickly to wor.k regularly, and she quit school early to help support her sister. She met Bart Charpentier in 1932; they -.verc married following a three-year courtship. Their seven children attended Lourdes and Fatima schools. Their eldest daughter became a nun. The Charpenriers live on Edgar Avenue.
Prairie~.
My sister was working while I was at Central School, and mv brother-in-la\\' was not tl1at weJl. He was alwavs' sicklv, so when I came home from school, nw chor~s wer~ to start supper and generally clean house or straighten dungs out. T did the wash with a wb and scrub board and, of course, we hung it out. And I did some ironing- I guess I did most all of it. My sister worked at the cannery for 40 years, and when my brother-in-law finally gor too sick to work, I would help her, even after I got married. We re';ued the house ITom a Mr. Holmes, and then, after my brother-in-law had worked tor a few years, we were able to bwld a house. We paid the other brother-in-law to buiJd the house; he had to come up trom the States. It was more of a shack, and we added on latt.:r. In time, we pur in better flooring inside and better sirung outside. There was quite a group of !:=rench Canadians around Maillardville, and we'd ha\'e house parties play music and dance. Everybody would bring something ro one place, and we'd have a party, and maybe the next Saturday, it was at another place, and
e came from Saskatchewan in 1930, when I was 16 or 17, by Ford truck, just my sister, her husband and me. She didn't have anv children, so she brought me up after my mother. died when I was two-and-a-half years old. My sister was 12 years older than me. We knew the Desautels family here because my sister was married to Albert Desautels, so we came to these people in MaiJlardville. We came out because my brother-in-law's doctor said it would be best for hjm to go where it would be warmer than on the Prairies. \Ve were from Pomeix in the southern part of Saskatchewan. My maiden name was Hinque- very unusual. My father was of Belgian descent and came from Paris, France, with a priest in 1903 to homestead in Saskatchewan; they really developed Pomeix. Together, they founded the parish called Notre Dame d'Auvergne. After arriving here, we stayed temporarily with the Desautels over on Tenby Street, then rented a house down on Roderick Avenue. My brother-in-law rook a linlc time to recuperate, and then he went to work at Fraser MiJls. But not right away because this was during the Depression, and there was no work. He worked on municipality roads and places like that, so we would get relief. Then he got his job at the mill. I'm not sure ifl'm mixing this up with the '''ar or the Depression, but we got a little book of coupons and we were allowed only so much. It was a very difficult time during the Depression. We certainly couJdn't buy anything like clotl1es, so we made most of our own clothes. While I went to school, my sister started working at tl1c cannery, the RoyaJ City cannery, tO help our at home. I went tO Central School; it's gone now. I think I went there for about a year and a half, stopping at Grade 8. We studied the regular things- geography, history, math, EngJish. I didn't go to school in French at all, although I spoke French at home. I remember I even wrote in French to my father, who was in Montreal at the time when I was going to school. Miss Bournes was my teacher. I think we were, if I'm not mistaken, Grade 4, 5, 6, and 7 in the one room, and I was the only one in Grade 7. The higher grades
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Bm·thele1nie and Celia Charpentier JVaik past Lom·des Cfmrch on their wedding day in 1935.
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