Edited interview with Dorothy Forrest (DF), daughter of Joseph Alcide Gauthier. Interview conducted by Joe Manning (JM) on February 4, 2009.

JM: When were you born?

DF: 1933.

JM: Where you living at that time?

DF: 17 Oak Court, in Clinton.

JM: Where was your father working at the time you were born?

DF: During the Depression, he worked for the WPA. He used to have to go down every morning to see if he could get work for the day. If he got there early enough, he got a shovel.

JM: That must have been a tough time for your family.

DF: I remember that it was 12 cents for a loaf of bread, and we had trouble getting up enough money for it. My mother had us looking all over the house for a few extra pennies.

JM: Was your mother working at all then?

DF: No. She stayed home and raised the children. She went to work when we got older. She worked in a bakery shop, making all kind of pastries.

JM: When did you get married?

DF: 1953, in Clinton. A few years later, my husband got an invitation to become a plant manager out here in Port Huron Michigan, so we moved. There were no jobs in Clinton.

JM: Did you go to college?

DF: No, but I finished high school.

JM: Do you have children?

DF: Yes, two girls and one boy.

JM: Your husband told me that your father had several jobs over his lifetime. At one time, he was a material handler, moving stuff from station to station in the shipping and receiving department for a company called Van Brode Cereals, in Clinton. Then he went to Ray-O-Vac, a battery company, also in Clinton. He also worked in a woolen mill in Hudson. But he never had his own car, so he always had to rely on taking the bus or getting a ride with somebody.

DF: That's right. Sometimes the bus driver wouldn't charge him because he was riding every day. He always wanted a car, but my mother wouldn't get one. He had to walk a good mile to get the groceries. It was hard work carrying the bundles home. He would say to my mother, ‘Mother, someday I'm gonna get me a car.' But he never owned a car. He worked hard and didn't have much in life.

JM: What did you think of the photos of your father?

DF: I think they are beautiful. I had never seen a picture of him that young.

JM: Did you know that he had lived in Winchendon?

DF: Yes. He had one brother in Winchendon that he liked. His name was Arthur. My husband and I took him up to there a couple of times to see him.

JM: Did your father have a nickname?

DF: They used to call him Babe.

JM: Did he speak French?

DF: He used to sing me a little song in French. I remember that he was so tired when he came home from work. He just wanted to get in his rocking chair and go to sleep, so he didn't have too much time for us. But on weekends, he used to take us to the movies a lot, at the Strand. And then we'd have an ice cream sundae next door, at Sanford's Drugstore (Wheeler & Sanford). One time, he was getting off the bus, and my mother sent me down to the store to get some apples. It was a rainy day, and my bag of apples got wet and busted, and the apples were all over the street. My father was just coming by at that moment, and I was standing there crying. He picked the apples up in his jacket and took me home.