The man I called Uncle Francis was really my mother's uncle. His name was Francis Bona, brother to Mom's mother.
When Mom's mother, Georgina Bona Samson died of influenza in 1918, her father Angus Samson, was in Europe fighting in the 1st World War. This left 3 small children, ages 6, 4 and 1, without a parent. My mother, who was 4 was taken in by her maternal grandparents; Uncle Simon the oldest and Ella Jane the youngest went to live with their fraternal grandparents.

The death of my grandmother is a bit of a mystery to me because of the circumstances of her burial. The priest, Fr. Boucher, refused to bury her in the church graveyard, because she died of influenza. I have tried over the years to get a rational explanation for this, but I have been unsuccessful in my efforts. It boggles my mind why a good christen woman was refused burial on sacred ground. She was buried in the woods, just outside the graveyard. No marker was placed or a cross erected. Mom placed a plaque in the graveyard a few years ago, a few yards from where she thinks she was buried.

Uncle Francis was so outraged at Fr. Boucher because of this, he refused to set foot in the church again. He kept his word until we persuaded him to come back to the church after Fr. Boucher had retired in 1958. After 40 years he made his peace with God, but I know he never forgave Fr. Boucher.

Uncle Francis was really a very good man and was loved by everyone who knew him. He was always helping people, making sure they had wood to burn and food to eat. He had this old truck that moved almost as fast as him (which wasn't too swift), but he loved it. He would come to visit us every day. We would see that old truck 'putt putt' down the driveway with Uncle Francis at the wheel, knowing he had something for us. Sometimes it would be homemade bread, (he would steal from his wife, Aunt Mary), Lobsters (the fishermen would give him when he guarded the wharf during lobster season), or anything else people would give him. He always said the same thing every time he walked in the door "footy, footy footy, how is everybody today?"
Never Did figure out what "footy" meant.

My sisters and I would visit him and Aunt Mary in Poirierville once in a while, something we always enjoyed. We called it "going to the country", because they didn't have electricity, or indoor pluming. The butter and milk was kept in the well where it stayed nice and cold. The kerosene Lamps would light up the house at night and make weird shadows on the walls.

We would eat Aunt Mary's homemade bread and jam and nothing ever tasted so good! We always went out to Uncle's place when it was haymaking time at the end of summer. It was hard work, forking the hay into the wagon, but the reward came when it was time to jump in the loft to pack the hay down, to make room for more.

I remembered recently, an incident that happened when I was about 12 years old. My cousin Sylvia Samson and I were on one of our 'visits' when we decided to clean Uncle Francis' shed. Boy, was that place a mess! He had junk everywhere. There wasn't a bare spot on the floor! We worked our buns off all day tidying everything up, and hurrying to finish before Uncle Francis got home. We couldn't wait to surprised him and see how pleased he would be with all the hard work we had done. Well…. words can't describe how 'PLEASED' Uncle Francis was. If two tired little girls ever came close to dying, we did that day!!! He ranted on and on about how he had a place for everything and now everything was moved and he couldn't find 'his stuff'! To make matters worst, we had thrown out some things we thought were garbage. He was fit to be tied. I thought he was going to have a heart attack. Aunt Mary tried to calm him while Sylvia and I tried to put everything back the way it was.

Aunt Mary was a French woman from New Brunswick, who spoke only French when she arrived in D'Escousse. Her French was very different from Acadian French. She asked my mother to go to the "magazin" For some butter, and Mom thought she was nuts because there wasn't any butter in the shed! Aunt Mary eventually learned to speak English, and Mom learned that "magazin" was the store. While I was living in Germany, he took ill with cancer. I knew he was doing a lot of suffering, and was actually relieved to hear he had passed on because his pain and suffering was over. He died in 1965.

Aunt Mary lived on and married twice more before she died in 1993.

Written by Jeanne Joyce-Stone 1998
 


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