Claude L. Rossignol

Children:

Mark

Kim

Karen

Family Record

Donat

 

A group picture of my family shows me as a blond toe-head little boy being held my mother when I was about 18 months old.  I went back to the farm in Frenchville many years later to where I was born and raised until we moved in 1939 to Lewiston, Maine. 

I remember growing up in Lewiston and attending grade school in September 1940. Since my birthday was on the 21^st of September and the school year began l September I was only four years old when I began to attend kindergarten. Attending school in Lewiston was very interesting because all the students spoke French. During recess I would go home from the schoolyard because I lived only a few blocks away, which was separated by a small park. My afternoon snacks after school was shred bread, sugar and milk.

Many pictures of the family were taken during those years in Lewiston. I remember one picture of my cousin, Brother Camille who was a missionary. His missionary order sent him to New Hebrides Island, which is located in the Coral Sea near Australia.  He would come to Lewiston for Rest and Relaxation and visited with us during the summer.

Grandpa and Grandma Hebert lived in Lewiston too. Grandma would make us some oatmeal cereal for breakfast with a dash of cinnamon, which I loved to eat. Whenever I eat oatmeal today, I like to have a dash of cinnamon to make it more tasteful.

My older brothers began selling penny newspapers on a street corner in Lewiston. I helped them sell papers on the days that I had no school class to attend. This was my first experience as a newspaper sales person.

In the apartment house where we lived in Lewiston there was a jailhouse around the block and the jail cell windows were facing the back yard of the apartment. Prisoners would yell out of the cell window when they would see me in the back yard. They asked me to get them some cigarettes but I did know what it was at that time.

My mother’s brother Walter was a musician and a member of a marching band. One summer he was marching in the 4^th of July parade. When I saw him marching I followed him down the street. At the end of the parade I had lost my sense of direction and didn’t know where I was. Uncle Walter saw me standing on the sidewalk and asked me what I was doing so far away from home. I said I had followed him. He then gave me directions on how to get back home. Many years after that incident, I did not stray very far from home.

During Easter my mother would dress Evan and I in sailor suits and visit our grandparents to meet all of our cousins who visited them too.