Excerpt from an interview with Donat Légaré: farmers visit the Légaré flour mill
Image: Photographer unknown, 197-.
Patrimoine culturel Vieux-Saint-Eustache collection.
Audio excerpt: Interview with Donat Légaré, Saint-Eustache miller, produced by [unknown], no date.
Excerpt length: 1 minute, 6 seconds. Patrimoine culturel Vieux-Saint-Eustache collection.
The miller Donat Légaré (1900-1980) talks about what the farmers used to do when they came to have their grain milled. The excerpt from the interview is transcribed below:
Donat Légaré: Right from the beginning, when I started working at the mill, the farmer would come in his vehicle. There weren’t many cars; the farmer would come with a cart or wagon, or a sleigh in winter. He’d bring his grain. He’d drop off his grain, because he always had things to do in town, in the village, at the shops, the creamery… He’d do his errands and then come back to the mill to pick up his grain, which had been milled in… He’d take it back home.
People can be funny. Some of them, the minute they’d set foot in the mill, if the mill was operating, the farmer would start singing along with the millstone. Others, it would put them to sleep. I knew one farmer, as soon as he’d come into the mill, he’d say to me: “Make up a bed for me.” We… I’d put a few sacks on the floor and he’d lie down on them and fall asleep until his grain was milled.