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During my illness I had contacted head lice from the fever that I had for so long. My mother had to burn all my clothes and bed clothes too. My father clipped my hair to a bald head. When I started to go back  to school  I was so embarrassed because my hair hadn't grown yet. I use to keep a hat on my head all day. The kids use to make fun of me. The teacher knew my problem, and she got mad at the kids for making fun of me.

At the time that I was sick, we were living in a small cottage that my father had built. It was like a cottage, it was only temporary. He was building a big house next to this one. It was a great big house, 4 bedrooms upstairs and 1 bedroom downstairs, a nice living room, and a large kitchen and a grocery store attached to it. I remember how happy we all were when we moved into that beautiful house. We lived there about 7 years, then my father decided that  he wanted to come to the United States to find work here. I remember how my grandfather was upset. He didn't like to see my father and his family moving so far away. I remember him telling my father. "Toute pierre qui roulle n'amasse pas mousse". It means "A rolling stone gathers no moss". My father said, "Un chien qui dort ne trouve pas d'os". It means, "A sleeping dog can't find no bones". Anyways,(in the spring of 1925) my father left with my sister Marie Louise & Floribert Blaise. They stayed (with my cousins Marie Louise Blaise and her husband, Floribert) there for about 2 months. After he had found a job, and they had found a rent, he send for us.

I remember my poor mother packing all the clothes & the furniture, all by herself. It was some job. We took a train to Montreal. "We were living in Grand'Mère at the time." Then at Montreal we had to go through immigration. They called my mother in the office, and I was left to care for 6 kids, my brother Roland was only 6 months old at the time. It took all day for all the paperwork and everything. At 9:PM we finally got on the train for Hartford. I remember my sister Jeanne got locked in the lady's room. She was crying and banging on the door. I had to go get the conductor to make him unlock the door. We finally arrived at Hartford at 7:AM. My father and my sister Marie were waiting for us at the train station. It was some reunion. They were so happy to be together again.

From there we took another train for Waterbury, then to our rent on Washington St. There was not much furniture in the apartment. It was a 5 room rent, and not very nice. "compared to our beautiful home we had in Grand'Mère" but that's all that he could find.

We were very homesick, we couldn't understand or speak one word of English and we didn't know anybody. My sister Marie had found a job in Scovill, So maman said to me "Go with your sister, see if you can find a job too. They had an interpreter there". So I went with down with Marie, there were no jobs for me. I was too young. (I was only 15 years old, you had to be at least 16 years old) Now I had to go back home all by myself. I didn't remember my way home. I was lost, I didn't know where I was going. I couldn't ask for directions because I couldn't speak English. I was walking along feeling sick. All of a sudden, I spotted St. Francis Church, then I knew where I was, because we lived right down on Washington St, what a relief.

After a while we started to make friends. There were a lot of French speaking people living on our street. We use to make little partys, "boys and girls". We use to play spin the bottle and post office or musical chairs, it was lots of fun. I met a boy, his name was Armand Dumoulin. He was living next door. He use to come to the house often. I remember one time I had a terrible ear ache, He came over, he was smoking a pipe and he blew smoke into my ear's, funny, I felt better after. This guy had a girl friend in Canada, I didn't know about that. Anyways he was too old for me. Pretty soon he moved back to Canada. That was it for the boy friend.

After a while we found a rent on East Liberty St. It was much better there but it was on the 4th floor. We were young, we didn't mind. It was a real big rent, 6 rooms,

That's where I met my husband. He use to live on the 2nd floor, and I lived on the 4th floor.