Our Hometown
Berlin | Aime Ramsey
Clip | 7m 49sVideo has Closed Captions
Aime tells the story of his immigrant grandfather, Francois Bisson, migrating from Quebec.
Aime tells the story of his immigrant grandfather, Francois Bisson, migrating from Quebec, and working in a number of enterprises, to support a large family.
Problems with Closed Captions? Closed Captioning Feedback
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Our Hometown is a local public television program presented by NHPBS
Our Hometown
Berlin | Aime Ramsey
Clip | 7m 49sVideo has Closed Captions
Aime tells the story of his immigrant grandfather, Francois Bisson, migrating from Quebec, and working in a number of enterprises, to support a large family.
Problems with Closed Captions? Closed Captioning Feedback
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when I think about my grandfather, Francois Bisson, I think of the American dream.
He was born in September of 1873 in, St Leon's, Canada, Quebec.
And he came to New Hampshire.
He came to this country at a young age and he went to work in the woods.
think about this now.
You know, this guy comes here as a young man.
He he knows how to write his name.
All right?
he establishes a dairy farm and he's a broker for Wood for Brown Company.
He had 15 children that lived.
He had 17 children.
And all.
And he was married twice.
His first wife passed away during childbirth and she left him with six children.
One of them was like only one years old.
And he was not able to care for his children and run his farm and run his business.
He needed to provide, you know, for himself and his children, but he couldn't.
So he placed them in a convent in Island Pond, Vermont, there was a Catholic convent in Island Pond, Vermont, and that's where he placed his children.
And they were there for a few years.
He went back to Canada to meet my grandmother, my mother's mother, my mother's part of the second family and God bless her.
She met my grandfather once and agreed to marry him, and then the next time she saw him was when he went to get her and to get married.
then she took in all his children and had nine children with him and one of them was my mother.
And my mother was the second to the youngest.
my grandfather passed away in in May of 1939.
And, you know, my mother was 20 years old and he had a child.
His name was Charles, and he was the child born the year before my mother.
And that was 1918.
And that was the year of the Spanish influenza.
And my grandmother almost died during childbirth for him.
And my thought, my grandfather put him in the oven to try to save his life, to try to keep them warm, to save his life.
But he didn't make it.
He didn't last the day.
there were hard times, too.
You know, I'm just trying to imagine what life was like for them.
They didn't have any electricity.
Everything was done by hand.
Most of the virtually all the food was grown.
He used to farm a lot with his brother.
His brother was Lazarre Bisson and he owned the farm, the next farm down.
And they would often share equipment and share their horses and, you know, and work together.
And his brother Lazarre, who, as a side note, was the one who established Bisson Sugar House, which has recently retired.
But anyway, Lazaar and my grandfather also had a flock of sheep at that time.
It was still profitable for small farmers like my grandfather with small flocks.
You know, their primary, their primary business was not, you know, raising sheep.
It was kind of a it was like a sideline going, you know what I'm saying?
Just like just like, you know, he had his woods, you know, his brokering job and that along with his dairy farm, you know what I mean?
the main purpose of those sheep was to be sheared.
It was for the wool.
And I'm assuming the wool went to Manchester, you know, for, for the woolen mills.
Now the land where the sheep were pastured was a little up the road from the farmstead and that's where I lived.
during the depression.
My mother talked about that occasionally they would have hobos they would come and they would ask for a meal and they would ask for a place to stay.
And they'd ask to sleep in the barn.
And my grandfather and grandmother, my grandfather never turned them away and he wouldn't let them sleep in the barn for fear that they would smoke and set the barn on fire.
So he said, Yes, you can stay.
And he'd ask my grandmother to prepare them a meal if they had already had their meal, and she would prepare them a meal and they let them sleep on the floor in the kitchen next to the wood stove and my grandfather spent the night in a rocking chair in the kitchen just to be safe Yes.
I have an appreciation for hard work and what those people did, because I feel today we don't work nearly as hard as they did.
And and they were very successful.
They they kept at it, you know, and and they didn't lose their faith.
In the wintertime, my grandfather would pack up all his children and use a sleigh to go to church every Sunday.
It took it was it took part of the day to go to church because in the winter you were use he didn't use his car.
It was a sled.
And you had a team of horses.
And that was and it took a while to get to church and it took a while to get back.
And at night, every night, they said their prayers.
They prayed as a family.
They said the rosary.
And on my father's grandfather's deathbed, the last things he said to his family was to stay together, meaning to stay united as a family.
You know what I mean?
So to me, family means a lot.
You know.
But, you know, through hard work and perseverance, he was able to get through life and have a good life.
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