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Interview With Marielle Rioux

Black and white photograph of a gravel road lined with log cabins and plank buildings. A car and several people are in the middle of the street in the centre of the photo. At the bottom, the inscription “Paris Valley Québec”.

Déménagement

Date of the interview: 2019

Credits: Société d’histoire de Malartic

Title of the photograph: Roc-d’Or is also sometimes called Paris Valley.

Date of the photograph: Circa 1938

Credits of the photograph : BAnQ Rosemont-La-Petite-Patrie, Postcards, 0003739750

In this excerpt from an interview, Madame Marielle Rioux talks about prostitutes and the illegal liquor trade in “Putainville”, French for “Whoreville”.

Mrs. Marielle Rioux: “In the old days, we didn’t say prostitute, we said “guidoune [whore]”. We had learned it that way. And there were, likely, more than three (laughs). Three that we knew were open (laughs). Of which three that we knew were open (laughter). With all the miners who came all on their own. We in our home, when we lived there, my mother was so scared. We were on the second floor and we locked the door and propped a chair against it. Even if there was a knock on the door, we wouldn’t answer. They thought everyone was selling liquor. When they saw a family they came for liquor, not prostitution. But they wanted liquor.”