First steps at Lafayette
Interview: Monique Provost-Chatigny
Post-production: Gabriel Laprade
Moving to and fro vigorously in his brown rocking chair, Marcel Charron recalls his first meeting with the Lafayette Manufacture manager.
Transcript:
Okay, so it’s like this, we’re in 1946 more or less. When I left the seminary. And then, I had to find work, you know.
At Lafayette, a guy going by the name of Bergeron was the general foreman. He was the manager back then. My mother told me, « Go see Mr. Bergeron. Ask him for a job. “ So me, I went there, to see what they might have for me at Lafayette.
Mr. Bergeron.
We all called him Bergeron.
He told me:
- Huh, you one of the Charron kids?
- Marcel Charron!
- Your dad?
- Normand Charron.
- No kiddin’! I knew your dad pretty well. The Charrons? They’re boot people. Shoe people. We’re gonna make a good shoemaker out of you. You’ll start in no time. We’ll find you a job. I’ll be calling you back and for sure you’ll be getting a job.
I was mighty thankful. They called me in no time because it went down something like this: Ti Georges Téreault, the very same who was Contrecœur mayor over here, he’d become the manager at Lafayette. But before becoming the manager, Ti Georges’ job had been the job I was about to land. In “fittage”, in trimming, with 40-50 girls, running errands, working machines, learning to sew. So, me, I pretty well took Georges’ place. It was me who ran errands, and carted lots, repaired straps. Whatever was needed.