Recalling the Past
A Final Farewell
It was a lonesome August day in 2012, a few months after my grandmother Noreen had passed away. My gram and I shared a special bond – she was like a second mother to me, since I spent most of my childhood at her house in Keenans. It was one of those days when the…
Read MoreThe Blackville Women’s Institute Active in the Community for 85 Years
The Blackville Women’s Institute celebrated Heritage Week in February with the theme “Leadership and Legacy”. Eleanor Donald, secretary, spoke of the Women’s Institute’s work in Blackville: I will speak on Legacy which means something handed down. I have in my hand a book entitled Fifty Years of Women’s Institute in New Brunswick. This was…
Read MoreHer Name Was Roseen
Pauline Underhill (née Coughlan) grew up in Gray Rapids, one of a dozen children. She attended the old Mountain School for six years in the late 1950’s. “Her Name Was Roseen” was written about her special childhood friend, Roseen Underhill. Read it below. Her Name Was Roseen Written by Pauline Underhill It was September 1956…
Read MoreHildebrand Descendant Seeks Blackville Schoolhouse Photos
John Hildebrand is looking for photos of an early Blackville schoolhouse that his great, great uncle Otto taught in. He explains below: I am inquiring concerning an early Blackville schoolhouse. My great, great uncle, Otto Hildebrand, taught in Blackville from 1884 until 1891. In fact, his wife, Amelia, who was also a teacher, taught with…
Read MoreThe Memories Endure
The story began sixty-four years ago with three-year-old Pat Fournier sharing his earliest memories of the quaint little village he called home. For the past thirty seven weeks, we followed Pat’s story as he progressed from a five-year-old boy wearing a cartoon mask from the back of a corn flakes box, to an eighteen-year-old graduate…
Read MoreGraduating Class of 1965
It’s June 30, 1965 and it’s Pat Fournier’s last day of school. With prom and graduation over, eighteen-year-old Pat is left to reflect on his past and contemplate his future in “Graduating Class of 1965”, the thirty-sixth installment of his memoir, “Memories of a Boy Growing Up in Blackville”. GRADUATING CLASS OF 1965 Written by…
Read MoreWhat’s My Size?!
While preparing for his upcoming senior prom, eighteen-year-old Pat Fournier has an uncomfortable run-in with the town pharmacist, Cecil Dunne, in this story set in June of 1965. “What’s My Size?!” is the thirty-fifth installment of Pat’s memoir, “Memories of a Boy Growing Up in Blackville”. The following story may contain mature subject matter. Reader…
Read MoreAnother Boy in a Casket
On a late November night in 1964, the Fournier family is awakened with news of a tragic accident: their cousin Pat McLaughlin had been killed in a fatal car crash less than a mile from home. Another Boy in a Casket is the thirty-fourth installment of Pat Fournier’s memoir, “Memories of a Boy Growing Up…
Read MoreThe Pasties
It’s the summer of 1964 and the circus has come to town. Seventeen year old Pat Fournier joins his older brother Johnny for a night he won’t soon forget in The Pasties, the thirty-third installment of his memoir, Memories of a Boy Growing Up in Blackville. The following story contains mature subject matter. Reader discretion…
Read MoreCar Thief
It’s the Spring of 1964 and seventeen-year-old Pat Fournier is anxious to get his driver’s license. In the thirty-second installment of his memoir, Memories of a Boy Growing Up in Blackville, Pat ‘borrows’ the family car with unexpected consequences. CAR THIEF Written by Pat Fournier May, 1964 – seventeen years old The second-hand blue Vauxhall…
Read MorePresident Assassinated
On a late autumn day in 1963, the world stood still after learning that the president of the United States had been shot and killed in Dallas, Texas. In the thirty-first installment of his memoir, Memories of a Boy Growing Up in Blackville, sixteen year old Pat Fournier recalls the day John F. Kennedy was…
Read MoreThe French Lesson
Sixteen-year-old Pat Fournier is growing up. In the thirtieth installment of his memoir, Memories of a Boy Growing Up in Blackville, Pat recalls an uncomfortable situation that occurs in Avila Colford’s grade ten French Class. The following story contains subject matter and language that some readers may find offensive. Reader discretion is advised. THE FRENCH…
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