Excerpt from an interview with Donat Légaré: Celebrating the New Year in the early 20th century

Donat Légaré [1900-1980] (left in the photo) was a miller, co-owner of the Saint-Eustache mill and resident of the city for many years, like his brother, Philippe (right in the photo). In this interview excerpt, he describes how the New Year was celebrated in his family. The excerpt is transcribed below :

Donat Légaré: We had to spend the whole morning at mass. Mom got us little ones ready. She would help us get dressed, and we had to go along. Go to mass with our parents. Then, when we got back from mass, it was the noonday feast. The city folks arrived by train in the morning in family groupings: the father, the mother, some with five kids, some with four, some with two… There was one that had six.

Some of them went to my uncle’s house for dinner – my uncle Émile, who lived on rue Saint-Nicolas. So then we had dinner in the two houses. At around five in the afternoon, the people down there would come up to the village to have supper with us. And the people who’d had dinner with us went down to Uncle Émile’s house for supper. They’d swap houses. After supper, the people down there would put on their coats and shout… The first one to get up would shout: “We’re going to Magloire’s place!” And then they’d all come up to our place to spend the evening dancing in the living room, singing, playing cards in the dining room.

One of my uncles, Edmond, would gather the kids together in a corner and get us singing. He was our self-appointed choir leader. Two uncles would play the harmonica. Émile and Edmond Légaré. Several uncles came from Montréal. My uncle Dévilaire, a singer, a dancer, he would do the petit bonhomme dance. He wasn’t very tall, but he sure had the moves! He was a real ham! He’d make up songs about everyone.