Louis and Jeanne Longchamps active in Sacred Heart Roman Catholic church in Chapleau for over sixty years

In the early 1920s, shortly after Jeanne and Louis Longchamps arrived in Chapleau, there were ony four automobiles, one of which the citizens had given as gift to Dr. J.J. Sheahan, who practised medicine in the community from 1907 until his death in 1942.

Dr. Sheahan received his car on July 21, 1921 while the others belonged to Father Romeo Gascon, Edgar Pellow and Len Perfetto.  

In the spring of 1916, Octave Morin came to Chapleau from Bic, Quebec, in Rimouski County to work as a carpenter for the Canadian Pacific Railway. In 1925 his wife Claudia and children Andre, Albert, Marie, Jeanne, Antonio, Marianne, Gerard, Cecile, Philippe and Lucienne joined him in Chapleau. Their first home was near the old horseshoe bridge where Zenon and Amanda Rioux later lived.

Louis Longchamps, age 19, arrived in Chapleau on August 1, 1922, with his brother Albert while Lorenzo would follow a few years later.

Mr. Longchamps started working for the CPR as a carpenter where his first foreman was Arthur Grenier and then Octave Morin.

But his father Charles Longchamps had earlier worked on the construction of the CPR and was one of the workers present when William Van Horne, the company president, visited the Jack Fish site in 1884.

He became acquainted with Mr. Morin's daughter Jeanne, and they were married on October 20, 1930 at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church in Chapleau. They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1980.

During the first years of his marriage Mr. Longchamps worked at Nipigon on a new bridge there, returning to Chapleau and living at 16 Lorne Street near the present post office from 1940 to 1978. I so well recall that Mr. and Mrs. Longchamps chose to become among the first occupants of an apartment in Cedar Grove Lodge when it opened in 1978.

They had two children Louise, who married Angelo Mione, and Jean Louis 'Johnny' who married Joan Bryson.

Mr. and Mrs. Longchamps were very active in the life of Sacred Heart Parish for more than 60 years.

Mrs. Longchamps was the founding president of the Ladies of Ste. Anne, established in the parish in 1958.

Mr. Longchamps was part of the parish team which dug out and built the church basement when Father Marchand was parish priest in the late 1950s.

In an interview in the Chapleau Sentinel marking the 100th anniversary of the parish, Mrs. Longchamps recalled that envelope boxes that were still in place on church pews at Sacred Heart, were all made by her father, Octave Morin. She remembered that Father Gascon would visit her father as he worked on them and admired his patience.

As I was working on this story, I could not help but reflect on the members of the Longchamps and Morin families, and the contribution they made to life in the community from their arrival in a place with four automobiles in the early 1920s and on. My email is mj.morris@live.ca

Identify members of Chapleau High School Chess Club of 1972-73

Name these members of the CHS Chess Club of 1972-73.
 
Last week's answers
 
Four of the Chapleau Reeves who graduated from CHS:  M.J. Morris seated and standing T.C. Way-White, D.J. Broomhead and F.A. Card.

Grant Henderson CHS Graduate of 1927: "Were I to pick my bringin' up place, I'd choose the same old town"

The girls of Chapleau High School 1926

Perhaps Grant Henderson, who graduated from Chapleau High School in 1927 sums up so well the reason that those of us who no longer live in Chapleau "must go back" as he wrote in a poem about the time of the school's 60th anniversary reunion in 1982.

Grant wrote in part that he must go back to Chapleau again, and "all I ask is to meet old friends, and raise a glass on high." 

NOTE: CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE!!!!!

On November 14, 1924, 1181 Chapleau High School Cadet Corps was established and remained an important part of high school life for 39 years, being disbanded on January 1, 1963. The annual cadet inspection usually held in late May on the field behind the Pine Street school was also a community event with large crowds attending, while the day ended with the Cadet banquet and dance. 

For most of its history, the Cadet corps and bugle band were the personal domain of John 'Old Mac' McClellan, teacher and later principal, but interestingly, he was not the first one to look after the corps. That would have been a Mr. Ashdown, the school principal.

Interestingly in his poem Grant refers to Mr. McClellan as 'OLD MAC' even though he would not have been that "old" when he first arrived at the school. Having been a school teacher though, being old seems to go with the territory as students perceive us as being old. I admit that I am getting there now!

George Crichton, Hugh McMullen, Grant Henderson

Grant recalled that one day the students released an owl in class which undoubtedly caused quite a commotion , "OLD MAC was called" who stood appalled "before his feathery blast". adding that "Perhaps it's best to leave the rest to history and the past."

Dances were very popular in the 1920s, and held in the Town Hall basement once a week, according to Grant. He also recalled dancing "with one's best girl in a close knit whirl, and dancing cheek to cheek."

My mother Muriel E. (Hunt) Morris would tell me about dances in the 1920s when she was  a teenager in Chapleau. They were also held in Perpete's Hall  which would have been in a building about where the Chapleau Pentecostal Church is now. My mother would sing and her older sister Elsie (Hunt) Zufelt would play the piano. 

Of course hockey was part of community life in the 1920s with games at the "old old rink" with the potbelly stove keeping the lobby warm. Public skating, in the darkened arena, with the silvery moon at one end and quite often the town band in attendance made it the place to be, particularly on a Friday night. It was still the place to be as I was growing up in Chapleau in the late 1940s and 1950s.

Grant also wrote about Ski Club nights beneath the Northern Lights "with the happy crowd and laughter loud, the swish of running skis". If I recall correctly the ski hill was located on the site that later became known as Dr. Young's hill. 

1181 CHS Cadet Corps 1926. A E Evans far left

Jack Whitney, who attended CHS in the late 1920s, in a talk he gave to students many years later recalled his first day there.

"I shall never forget my first day in First Form. I was wearing black boots (not shoes) black wool stockings up to the knee and knicker-bocker pants which strapped around just below the knee and flopped over just an inch or so. Above this I had on a long-sleeved V-neck pullover, and this was topped by a grinning face and a shock of unruly light hair. I looked a good deal like most of the other boys except for size, shape and colouring. 

"The girls, as I remember wore low-waisted long dresses down to two or three inches above the ankle, with lisle hose and sensible shoes. Most of the hairdos were dutch bobs with a few with long curls and most of the hats were the helmet type, usually of felt, and I believe were patterned after the steel helmets of the previous war."

And so, just a glimpse back to the early days at CHS as the 90th anniversary reunion draws ever closer.

Grant, who went on to a very successful career in business, often returned to Chapleau to visit over the years, usually with his great friend George Crichton, another CHS grad. 

He sums it all up at the end of his poem suggesting that "Perhaps those days through memory's haze take on a richer hue" adding that perhaps that's true but "... this I know, And I've wandered up and down. Were I to pick my bringin' up place, I'd choose the same old town."

Grant "Grizz" Henderson died in 1994.

My thanks to David McMillan for providing me with a copy of Grant's poem, and to Dr. Vince Crichton for additional material. My email is mj.morris@live.ca