An active woman

Photo Pierre-Paul Poulin

Jacques Laplante

Sunday, 30 July, 2017 08:00

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Sunday, 30 July, 2017 08:00

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The life of Irene, Richard, 106 years, can be summed up in two words : hard work.

Born in Saint-Claude, in the Cantons-de-l’est, it began very young to work on the family farm, mainly to make hay (” veilloches ” to use his terms) and to milk the cows, jobs that she hated.

“I never would have married a farmer,” she says.

In 1930, at the age of 19, she left Saint-Claude to work in a shoe factory at Richmond. The schedule was tedious, from Monday to Saturday from 7 h to 18 h.

“In addition to that, it worked the first month without pay,” she recalls. If it was the case, they kept us and it is only there that they began to pay us $ 3.50 per week. “

It was little to the sixty hours that she worked, especially as she had to return half of his salary to an aunt who had taken her in. To round out its purposes of months, she did the sewing after her working hours.

Independent

Married in 1936, and having moved to Montreal, it will still work as a seamstress, even after the birth of her two sons.

“It would have been too flat,” says the centenarian, who ensured its independence.

“When we wanted something, we bought it as our first phone as soon as the war ended, because we had not the right during the war . Or our first refrigerator, a Roy to replace the cooler, and my first tv in the early 50s, ” she said.

Still active today, that has celebrated its 106 years in December, love to settle down at the sewing machine to change or adjust clothing.

► The secret : the working