Jacqueline Memories: Lodge

Visual Description 

Jacqueline Treggett is sitting in her living room. Various images are shown as she speaks: the lodge in the fall, the front of the lodge, the back of the house, and the old picture of the gardener house.

[Music starts]

Introduction:

Jacqueline Memories of the House

The family home for Generations

Jacqueline starts:

What I liked less about living in this big house was the public aspect. There was a lot of positive, but we were continually disturbed either by the doorbells, phone calls, and people.

The side of the street on Chemin Saint-Louis was also a bit annoying because the traffic was quite dense and noisy. In the summer, in my kitchen, I could not afford to open the windows.

There was also the shady side of the house because there were so many hundred-year-old trees that blocked the sunlight. I had a lot of difficulties growing my plants inside do to the shade.

By the way, I did a lot of horticulture and became friends with Mr. Archer, the florist. He had greenhouses, and I was going to visit him as well as Larry Hodgson, the horticultural columnist for the newspaper Le Soleil who was doing his experimental garden on the cemetery land. I learned a lot from the advice I received from these people.

At one point, I realized that the house had become too public for my liking.

I suggested that Brian buy the then gardener’s cottage for our eventual retirement. Which we did because we thought the idea was very good. Fortunately, we did that because now we live there. And it’s fantastic, and it’s a truly extraordinary place: the view of the river is breathtaking. It is very pleasant, and it is quite peaceful.

There are a few anecdotes I can add from the time I was in charge of the burials replacing Brian at the cemetery. Once the hearse doors were locked, and I had to go into the lodge with the funeral home team to look for hangers to unlock the doors.

Another time, a family member who came from outside asked me to take pictures for other people who could not come to attend the funeral. I accepted with pleasure but … by instinct … without even thinking about it and because I found them sad, it escaped me, and I said to them: “Smile!”. So I felt uncomfortable to have been able to tell them that, but it passed …

In short, we enjoyed living in the cemetery lodge was extraordinary, but now we love living where we are now.

[Music Ends]

Credits:

Subject – Jacqueline Treggett

Editor/Director/Interviewer – Ariel Blouin

Partner/Contributor – La Société d’Histoire de Sillery