Marie's Memories Include Cleghorn

Marie Aubin was born in Fitchburg, Ma. in 1915 at her parents' home.
 By 1914 Cleghorn a neighborhood of Fitchburg, boasted that this area furnished a quarter of all the tax revenue for the city of Fitchburg, and that it sustained over 100 places of business, the majority of the businessmen being young and vigorous.' Quotes from Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise.
Our Marie, I always call her, is a woman of strength and substance. She is opinionated and warm hearted. Marie has sustained, hard times and enjoyed fun and fulfilling times. She is talented, but always willing to learn new things. Marie traveled the streets of Cleghorn for many years as a child as well as an adult.

1889

Marie's husband played cribbage here

Cost $38K

 This post is a little bit about that neighborhood and the people in Marie's lives that were a part of it. I am not an Aubin, but a Lizotte only by marriage to Marie's son.  So, if I make mistakes, it is inevitable. Please be kind.
This post was generated by a saved newspaper that I found of Marie's that sparked some memories of her sons, Roger and Francis (Fran). The date of the newspaper was February 20, 2000. Headlines, Cleghorn: Fitchburg's French-flavored former 'capital'. This "strip" was built by Andrew Cleghorn from the river to the now Cleghorn Street, and extended from Oak Hill Road to Daniels Street. There was some noise that it should not have been named Cleghorn because he split after about four years. The Mill gave this area a huge start. It was a cow pasture, timber, and apple orchard that ended up with Cleghorn and other manufacturers like Parkhill into a thriving self-sustaining community. There you have just a bit of history of the neighborhood that Marie Aubin and her family and later her married life was part of. There were woolen mills, grist mills, paper mills, hat factories, scythe factories, harness makers, shoe factories, brickyards, 12 sawmills and a quarry. The Scotsmen's ginghams really put Fitchburg or rather, Cleghorn, on the map. The fabric was touted to be the best in quality and color.

Top=$200+K
Bottom=$1,200K=

Roger and Fran remember their father going to the cafe's on Cleghorn and Daniels Street. I smirk to myself that the owners called them cafe's not bars. I'm sure in those days it was not mannerly to "go to a bar." A cafe' was alright because you could eat there. One cafe that Fran mentioned was the Rendezvous. Roger didn't remember that, but it's difficult to say how many times that the names of those places were changed. I laugh at that name because Rendezvous means to meet, gather, and assemble which they all did; funny.
Another change was education. At one point, education cost the city $26.00 a year for a child. This artlicle was also in the Sentinel in December 1938.
In 1938 education cost one quarter of municipal dollar. It looks like to me that Fitchburg now has 17 different schools of all different age and learning capabilities including a State University.
Along with all the different businesses that I mentioned there were theaters also. The original theater was called the Rambeau Theater which opened in 1914, just a year before Marie was born. It was renamed the Strand in 1922 and was still open in 1950. One of Marie's nieces also mentioned that there was an Estre Theater in Fitchburg that she might have gone to also. I cannot find any archived pictures. She also said that from Marie's family home it was about three or four miles. There were 2 theaters in Fitchburg at that time. Note how much the movie cost when Marie was almost twenty years old. One time she wanted to go to the movie and she was short a nickel. Her father said that instead of being able to keep a dollar out of her paycheck as usual she would only get 95 cents because money did not grow on trees. Going to the "show" as she called it was a passion for her. I found a picture of her and her girlfriends (several) sometime ago. I bet they all went to the show and had a grand time. There is a picture of Marie by herself that is in fact a button. The reason she had it was lost until she was over 102 years old. She said that she and her girlfriends had gone to a carnival and had this made.

The population of Fitchburg in 1913 was approximately 10,000. The French-Canadian folks were about 2500. They were eager to work at the mills and better themselves. A large amount of these immigrants were farmers, and even though the work was not easy, mill work was easier. Many of those men also fought in our Civil War in place of the American men were of the first to find work in the mills.

Housing, however, was not easy to come by. Daniels, ( a member of the board of directors at the Cleghorn Mill, rolled up his sleeves, cleared land, laid out roads and built what they called in those days, "deckers." They were three and four stories high. They later were called tenements and folks were charged $2.00 a room to rent. The article did not say if by the week or month. It would be more interesting if we knew that for sure. I am assuming by the month.
These articles refer to many times that Cleghorn was characterized by "on the hill" "and at the bottom of the hill." The bottom was where the "deckers" were built. If a family built a house and left a "decker" they were referred to as "moving up the hill." Interesting.
There is a reference to Canadian signs above stores stating, "Ici on parle Francais." Those of you that speak French please put in the comment window what that sign said.
I could go on and on with this post, but sometimes shorter is better. Please let me know if you would like more stories out of these two old newspapers. One paper has ink that is almost gone (1938) but I salvaged enough for some very interesting reading I think. Of course, I am a history buff. I just love this kind of thing.

Smokey, Charlie's Dog

Marie's youngest brother, Charles, was in the Navy for over twenty years. They got to live all over the world. They have such fabulous memories of their travels and various homes. One of their most fond memories is of Smokey, a Wire Hair Terrier. I do not at this time have a picture of him or of Charlie and Nancy's kids when they were young, but when I get them I will add them to these posts. Charlie alluded to the fact that this is just Part 1 of the Smokey Series. This kind of thing I just love.
As I told the Closed Group of Charlie's oldest sister, I really messed up by not recording Charlie as he told us Smokey's story in person. He was here for Marie's 103rd birthday this month.
This story begins in our living room after a hot day of visiting and helping repair Marie's granddaughter's car. She lives over 700 miles away from home so that project was big and important. It was now time to relax and visit.
This is the beginning of Charlie's story called, "Our Dog Smokey."
"Smokey was a dog we added to our family when we were stationed in Spain. He was a wire haired terrier. He was the runt of the litter, but that's what the kids wanted so that was that.
Nan and I started teaching him easy tricks such as sit up, roll over, and turn around. Then we started to try more difficult tricks such as speak on command and progressed to counting by barking to hand signals and voice commands. One finger is One bark, Two finger for two barks, etc. He could count to three and subtract from three to one at first with voice commands then to just hand commands.
Nan taught him to close doors because the kids would run in the house and fail to close the door. One day I came home from shopping and I had my arms full. I told Smokey to close the car door. Little did I know that our neighbor was in the front yard watching this. Smokey had jumped up and pushed the door, but it did not close, so I told Smokey to go back and close the door which he did.
My neighbor came over and said that if he had not seen this with his own eyes that he would not believe it. He said, "I wish I could train my children to what he just did!"
Smokey did not like to be penned up in the back yard and would dig his way out of the fenced yard. I finally took two pickets off the fence at the bottom so that he had a way out. When I did that he stayed in the back yard until one of us came home and then he would greet us in the FRONT YARD!!" I capitalized front yard, Charlie did not. I still cannot get over how smart Smokey was.
"We were moving to Dallas from Austin and put the house up for sale and put it in a real estate dealer's hand.  We told the Realtor to leave the dog in the back yard when they left the house. They put him in the back yard and proceeded to lock the house and put the key in their lock box on the door handle. She looked down there was Smokey. She was sure that she had left him in the back yard, but she unlocked the door and went in the house. She opened the sliding door and put Smokey in the back yard. She left the house, locked the door, put the key in the lock box and lo and behold there was Smokey. She proceeded to call me and swore that she had left him in the back yard! I told her that it was okay because he had his own key. (Can you imagine the poor lady's state of mind?)
We used to play hide and seek with him and the kids would go hide and he would go find them. He sometimes would cheat by peeking to see where they were going so I would have him cover his eyes with his paws 'til they were hidden. Then I told him to go find them. He would always go to the last place he found them and then would search the rest of the house and as always found them all.
All the things we taught him were done without treats after each trick. He would do them for anyone as long as they spoke clearly.

Charlie and Nancy Aubin

He loved to play games that the kids played and tried to do everything that that did, We lived across the street from a playground and there was a slide that the kids were using. He would climb the slide ladder and slide down with them just like it was a natural thing that dogs did.
When it was bedtime the family would say prayers before going to bed. We taught Smokey to lay his head in my lap and cover his eyes while we prayed. Every once in a while, he would uncover his eyes to see what was going on. I would scold him and tell him to pray and he would cover his eyes until we were done."
Part 2 of Smokey's story will arrive soon, I presume. When It does, I will print it up and put it on line for all of you to read. Hope you enjoyed Part 1. This story is definitely part of the Aubin Family History.