Jos and Omer

A heavy knock reverberated on the door of the Lacoursière residence. Joseph Lacoursière, the patriarch, upon opening it, was met by a stern military face.



“Sir, we’ve come to escort your sons to the army base.” The matter was clearly non-negotiable. Many young Canadian men and women were conscripted to wear the uniform during the First World War. Jos, 19 years of age and his brother Omer, 20 years of age, were to be among them.

Although Joseph Lacoursière was small in stature, the set of his square jaw and the firmness of his voice made it clear that this was not going to be an uncomplicated recruitment.



“It is out of the question!” He was refusing to let the boys go.



Joseph was still standing firm on the wooden deck that stretched across the front of his home, rifle in hand, when the police arrived later to take his boys to the military base.



The law enforcement officers were taken aback that this once peaceful, patriotic man was now armed and vehemently protective of his sons. Naught but a single tear in the corner of one eye betrayed the nervous tension he was under. Hoping to avoid an unpleasant scene, the police stood down and listened to his plea.



“Haven’t I explained clearly enough?” A tremor rippled through the question.



Pride and sorrow shadowed his eyes as he choked back tears.



“As we speak, their mother, my wife, is on her death bed. How can a mother leave this world without seeing her sons and how can her sons leave their beloved mother at the moment she needs them most? The boys need to say their goodbyes… to be with their mother.”

He shook his head in wonder as if for a moment, he were somewhere else. The rifle in his hand waivered then dipped as he went on, his voice stricken with emotion.



“She’s been the love of my life and a dear mother to our children. Our youngest, sweet Bernadette, is only two years old and look there…’la petite Blanche’ is only six! Please…I beg you to allow a mother to have her sons at her side before she leaves this world.”



Armed with the confidence of his conviction Joseph drew a line in the sand with words that firmly explained his position. And he punctuated it with the rifle in his hands. He dared not take the chance that his plea for compassion might fall on deaf ears or on cold hearts.



“My boys will come to the base…but only after their mother has seen them in her last breath and not a moment before. Go back and tell them that they will be there…but not until the moment is right!”



The police officer relented and accepted his guarantee.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Omer and Jos soon found themselves on a ship crossing the ocean taking them to the front… the heart of the battle. They left in their wake, a deceased mother and a grieving father with small children to care for. Yet, Omer and Jos were very unassuming. They did not question their responsibility or their duty. They had been called to serve and so they did.



The next period of their lives would be filled with struggles for survival. Each day, they were faced not only with their own mortality, but also with that of their comrades in war. Blood, mud and the taste of their own fear filled their waking hours.



How curious, then, when a rosebud teased its way out of the rubble of war. Two rosebuds to be exact. Omer and Jos’ battalion was temporarily stationed in Glasgow, Scotland. From the first moment Omer saw Elsie, he was smitten. What began as infatuation between a French-Canadian soldier and a munitions worker near Glasgow soon became more.



Omer wanted to share his good fortune with Jos.



“Come on Jos,” he would coax, “you’d love Elsie’s sister. Isobel’s a sweet girl! Can’t you at least meet her?”

Omer succeeded at last in introducing his brother to Elsie’s sister, Isobel. Both girls worked in the munitions factory and had been touched by the urgency of war.



Two sisters and two brothers fall in love, marry, have children…and share in each other’s family lives as the years roll by. Jos’ family would come to Omer’s for Sunday dinner and vice versa. That is how it might have been, but, life is a labyrinth of interesting twists and turns.



When Omer and Jos came home after the war, Elsie and Isobel came with them, a flurry of quest and lace.



When the two couples arrived in Detroit City, they stepped out of the strife and ruins of war into a vibrant, bustling metropolis. Anticipation bristled through the air. The automobile industry had taken the North American economy by storm and in the years following the First World War, the auto factories were booming.



Omer and Jos arrived in Detroit City only a few years after Henry Ford’s unprecedented move to raise wages from $2.30 to $5.00 per day. Ford believed that his workers would be happier and would work harder if they were given a higher wage. The increase in wages brought thousands of workers from all over the world to Detroit. The opportunity this presented to Omer and Jos was irresistible. This was a chance for a decent job and financial stability. Omer asked Elsie to marry him. And why not? Ford’s progressive ideas had created an attractive environment for young couples starting out. What were once farmlands were now vast new subdivisions. Row upon row of neat frame homes, each with its lawn and space for a small garden, were built to accommodate the population explosion. Stores, restaurants, gas stations sprouted everywhere to meet the residents’ demands. Ford even provided opportunities for education.



Omer and Elsie jumped at this break but, Jos was not ready to settle down. The factory made him gag as did the thoughts of marriage to Isobel. These rows of neat little houses were not the life he wanted. Isobel packed her bags and returned home to Glasgow while Jos found his way to northern Ontario where his father and several of his sisters were living.



Some say our lives are pre-ordained. Perhaps that is the explanation for the paradox that was Omer and Jos. Here we have two young men whose lives up until now have been so closely intertwined that one might indeed expect them to continue following in each other’s footsteps. But, that can only happen if both see life through the same eyes.





Omer needed to be in control of his life. He’d seen enough to know that he could not go on scrounging for every penny. His children would not be dressed in hand-me-downs and they would not wonder when they’d have their next meal. He’d seen enough poverty and hardship at home on his father’s subsistence farm and abroad in the battle-broken lands of Europe to last him a lifetime.



“Moi, j’aurai pas d’famille que je ne peux pas faire vivre…”

« As for me, I won’t have a family that I can’t support…” he once declared to his father.



Joseph, his father, merely shrugged the words off as though they had nothing to do with him. He had no regrets for his nine children nor for the life he had provided them. He had done as much for them as his own parents had done for him. After his wife had died…he had continued to raise his children on his own. That was enough, he believed. If his son wanted something different…that was his prerogative.



And indeed, Omer did want something different.



Omer worked at one of the automobile plants where he could count on a new car at a reduced employee rate every year. He and Elsie enjoyed a comfortable standard of living with their two sons. Once a year, he and his family would make the long drive to Crystal Falls to visit his sister Blanche and his father Joseph, who lived with Blanche’s family.



Omer and Elsie would bring boxes of used clothing they had likely gotten from the Salvation Army. Omer’s sister Blanche would recycle these into clothing for her family. Whenever they came to visit, Omer, Elsie and their children were treated like royalty at Blanche’s insistence. Elsie, who did not speak French, made no attempt to learn the language or to lend a hand in the house.



My mother, who was a small child at the time, remembers feeling unnerved by ‘des grands yeux blancs’ ‘big white eyes’ that seemed to follow her every move. My mother remembers going about her chores, all the while being stared at by Elsie. Elsie just watched… never smiling, never speaking, and never lending a hand.



The summer is a very busy time on a farm. There were animals to care for, fields to cut, food to be prepared to feed a large family and now with added guests, there were additional sheets to be washed, beds to be made. Everything was done by hand. There were no fancy appliances to help lighten the load. Omer‘s visits to Blanche’s busy home with her many children and primitive lifestyle, must have served to further underline his justification for his decision to stay in Detroit, work at the auto plant and limit the number of children in his family.



Omer and Elsie filled their time those summers, just sitting around and playing cards. They were on holidays. They arrived empty-handed except for the boxes of clothing and did nothing to help with the work on the farm or in the house. My mother remembers this summer ritual going on for many years until one summer when her mother had become ill. She was unable to entertain four additional guests in the house that summer. She asked if her brother and his family would consider renting a cabin at Studholme’s Camp at nearby Lake Chebogan.



One might think that Omer and Elsie would have been eager to help the now ailing Blanche who had received them so well for so many years. Instead, they were insulted and moved their summer excursion to Maniwaki at his sister Marie’s home, never again to return to Crystal Falls.

As for Jos, he became a kind of nomad. To my mother, he was a mysterious fellow who would disappear for months at a time until he would suddenly magically reappear in their hayloft. And that is where he spent the summer nights…sleeping in the hayloft. This was a coveted place on the farm. Often the children too would opt to sleep out in the barn rather than in their warm, stuffy rooms.



My mother later understood that Jos’ disappearance for all those months was spent working at a lumber camp. For a while, he worked on the dam on the French river. He seemed to drift in and out of my mother’s family like a fog that creeps in overnight and lifts and is gone by morning. My mother remembers him as being around all her growing up years. He was easy-going and was generally well-liked by everyone.



When he really needed to let loose, he would sometimes take a room at a hotel in town where he squandered his hard-earned dollars on wine, women and song. This was his practice…what his life had become. He worked hard all winter, made his money, and then spent it on drink during the summer until there was not a penny left.



As he became older, Jos’ lifestyle took its toll on him. His drinking caused him to become increasingly belligerent and difficult to be around. Eventually, his body ravaged by alcohol, no longer able to work in the camps, he moved in with his sister Bernadette in Sudbury. He perished at the age of 58 of a heart attack.



Although Jos never married, he had once known love. Her name was Lisette. She was Jos’ first love. Her eyes twinkled with mischief at him as her long dark hair curled wildly against her fair skin. But it was her infectious laughter and her light spirit that had entranced Jos since the moment they first met. Although he was a little more than two years older than Lisette, he always managed to sit near her at school or at church. Lisette, in turn had grown to love Jos for his gentleness. She loved the way he would sit with her and quietly talk about this and that. They never tired of one another’s company.



By the time Lisette was 15 and Jos was 17 almost 18, they were so deeply in love with one another that they asked their parents for permission to marry. It was out of the question. Their parents felt they were too young. They continued to see each other but, a year later, heartbroken, Jos left for war.



Several years later, after Glasgow, after Detroit, after realizing the young woman from Glasgow was not for him…he returned to Maniwaki to find his sweetheart, his first and perhaps, only true love. When he arrived, it was too late. Lisette had married someone else.



Jos lost the two women who were most precious to him, first his mother then his sweetheart. He and his brother Omer with whom he had endured war experiences… now had parted ways. Who can know what atrocities they had encountered while at the front?



And now, Jos found himself suddenly alone.



When Jos enlisted for war duty the second time during World War II, he was not sent to the front as he would have been in his late thirties or early forties. But regardless of the role he played, army life is a difficult one. It is difficult to imagine serving in two world wars in one lifetime.



Had all of these events twisted Jos into something he could no longer recognize? His actions seem to show that he no longer wished to even try. Was his path pre-ordained or was it shaped by the events of his life? What dreams did he hold in his heart before life happened to him?