Jacqueline’s Memories: Animals

Visual Description:

Jacqueline Treggett is sitting in her kitchen. Various images of animals taken on the cemetery grounds shown during the interview: a raccoon, a dear, a moose, a cardinal, ducks.

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Introduction:

Jacqueline Memories of Animals

Our Creature Comforts

Jacqueline starts:

Other anecdotes are part of my memories. I took great pleasure in caring for several kinds of animals which are special when it comes to living in the city.

There was a stag that made the cemetery his new home. He took to feeding on the cedar bushes and was causing considerable damage. I called the wildlife services, but they said they could not come and get him. They told me that I needed to adopt him, so I looked after him all winter; he became my friend. He also came back every year, and this was an extraordinary experience for me.

I also had many experiences on the grounds with raccoons. The cemetery trees were their home, and on one occasion, a forestry student was trimming dead branches the top of a tree, and a raccoon came after him.  The student came close to falling from the tree.

Another pleasant experience I had was a friend who owned a hatchery, so I asked him to loan me an incubator so I could hatch duck eggs in my dining room. I ended up with a family of ducks in my yard.

We also had wild ducks that would sometimes visit the cemetery grounds to have their young.

There were a few times, about two or three times, moose that ended up in the cemetery. The wildlife department explained to me that animals like deer and moose swim across the river. The grounds of the cemetery attracted them because, with the big trees, it looked like a forest.

One morning there was a Grand Duke owl. He perched on the peak of the fence. What show! It was beautiful. He stayed long enough. Finally, he flew away because passers-by frightened him.

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Credits:

Subject – Jacqueline Treggett

Interviewer – Ariel Blouin

Producer – La Société d’Histoire de Sillery