I had dinner with one of the town planners for Westbrook the other night. He was at the other end of the table from me and, from what I could see, was not feeling very well that evening so I didn't get the chance to ask all the questions I had always wanted to ask a Westbrook town planner. Not that I had any of these questions in my mind before last week, mind you - but they're burning ones now.

Like, where was Hottentot, for example? What ever happen to this 'S.D. Warren development for employees', as Aunt Emma calls it in her journal? Has it been torn down? Condo-ized? Made into an old folks home?

And what will happen to this mill town - where nearly all the residents at one time worked for the same employer - now that the trough is running dry? How does a planner deal with the changing demographics, aesthetics, and logistics of a place as it morphs into a small city that is no longer a self-sustaining, one-gig town but acts as a dispersed bedroom community for other cities that are miles away?

And where have all the Tourangeaus and the Duclos gone - the thickly intertwined families who worked the machines, did the books, sorted the paper, and - in my father's case - baked the bread for the town? Are there still multiple generations of French Canadians living in Westbrook, or is all that from another era now?

I suppose it is no surprise that in two generations' time so much can change. Look how much changed in my Aunt Emma's time alone... As I said yesterday, my Great Grandfather Ludger became one of the first French Canadian foremen at S.D. Warren and, within a very few years, he had moved his family from the Warren 'company village' called Hottentot to the house at 145 Brown Street which, as Emma is careful to point out, took her parents 20 or more years to pay for. An interesting boast, it seems. From here, after Ludger died, Emma's mother took matters into her own hands and sought out a new plan. The Tourangeau family sold Brown Street for $3400.00 cash and promptly bought a lot on Sargent Street for $350.00 and had a bungalow built for $3050.00.

My Great grandmother was some mathematician.

I note all this because I think this progression was not an uncommon one for many of the families who came to Maine with next to nothing and in one generation had moved in and out of three different houses, expanding each and every time.

But here is where the particularly Maine aspect of things comes in... For Aunt Emma (and so many others), the real proof of having struggled through it all and having finally come out the other end was her ability to leave all the big houses and to finally buy a little cottage on an island. Peaks Island, to be exact.


For 21 years Emma and her sister Virginia opened and closed this cottage each season. 'Happy Landing', it was called, and she writes: 'we all enjoyed this little house, close to the water, and sun set views - near the store - bus right by the door... For four years I commuted to Cumberland Mills and Virginia stayed alone days. In 1952 we sold the house at 25 Sargent and spent our winters at The Eastland Hotel - on a contract of 26 weeks. Naturally we two had a grand way of life'.

So, from Hottentot to Happy Landing, Emma's string of domestic inhabitations through her life exemplified both the difficulties and the desires that were embraced by a generation of Quebec families that figured out how to make Maine work for them. And Emma knew this - that's why her self-published Island Cookbook Featuring Old French Canadian Recipes has a very clear mandate: hers was to be a cooking aide for the 'new Quebec woman' who was always on the move but knew where her roots were... As Emma's foreward says: "This cookbook has been compiled to meet the demands of the family moving from the city to the islands, seashore, lake, or mountains for the summer months. Very often one's own cookbook, or box of recipes, is left behind, and this means a catastrophe, at times, for the person who has to provide meals for a usually very hungry family".

So, just in case you're heading for a catastrophe, here is Aunt Emma's recipe for COMPOTES exactly as it's written on page 90:

Cook squash or pumpkin as you would use it for a pie; but ALWAYS add a little molasses (about 3 tablespoons); add 1/4 teaspoon each of cloves, nutmeg or mace, 1/8 teaspoon ginger. Serve these mixtures as a DESSERT. They are surprisingly delicious when served with very little plain cream. As children, we thrived on these compotes; with a doughnut out of the kettle (hot), a glass of milk, we asked for nothing more.