“We saw a crow on March 11, 1889.” Spring is finally here! On this old clock, mysterious and long anonymous inscriptions reveal the everyday life of a peasant family from Bécancour around the turn of the century.e Century.
“In 1896 he did [sic] began on April 6th with the notches 7 and 8” can be read in the right frame of the clock. Between 1881 and 1904 the date of the start of sugaring, sheep shearing, ploughing, sowing, haymaking and harvesting are entered in the clock.
Photo from the Musée de la Civilization, donated by Christian Chevalier, photographer: Julien Auger
This applewood wall clock was made by Porter Kimball in Stanstead in the Eastern Townships in 1840 and is the oldest in the collection of the Musée de la Civilization in Quebec. The mechanism is still functional and needs to be wound every 30 hours.
A homemade everyday
From candle-making to the birth of a filly, this seasonal daily life is intertwined with religious festivals, marriages and deaths. This shows the many interactions of country people whose rare outings to extended families in neighboring towns are a real event.
The Beauchesne, Bergeron, Boisvert, Cormier, Cyrenne, Demers, Ducharme, Dumont, Gagné, Girard, Lacourse, Landry, Leblanc, Levasseur, Mailhot, Marchand, Rhéault and Rochefort are mentioned in these humble writings. But which of these old families from Bécancour and the surrounding area owned this famous clock?
When the watch was acquired by the Musée de la Civilization in 2005, initial research had failed to identify its late 19th-century owner.
Photo courtesy of the Musée de la Civilization, gift from Christian Chevalier, photographer: Julien Auger
A mystery finally solved
But today, in 2023, it is possible thanks to the databases constantly enriched by the researchers and genealogists of Bécancour.
“I am sure that it is one of the daughters of my great-great-grandfather, Célina Cormier, who wrote in this watch,” says President of Patrimoine Bécancour, Raymond Cormier. “Her husband is Pierre Cyrenne, whom she called father, like ‘Popa’ in La petite vie. The first names of his aunts and uncles as well as those of his 11 children mentioned in the inscriptions on the watch match the information in our databases.
According to Mr. Cormier, the family still lived in Row Cournoyer, near the river but also near an area known for its maple groves. A century later the row became Boulevard Bécancour. On the premises of their farm we find the industrial park and… cannabis greenhouses.
A first contact with an artifact
No wonder this fascinating watch was chosen to be part of the Ma Maison youth exhibition, which was inaugurated in 2022. “It seemed perfect for the living room where the main theme is transmission from one generation to the next. For the little ones, it’s a first encounter with collectibles,” says Musée de la Civilization curator Lydia Bouchard.
About the Museum of Civilization
Inaugurated in 1988, Québec’s Musée de la Civilization is a society museum. It stands out for its thematic and multidisciplinary programming, its openness to contemporary issues and the priority it gives to the human being. Its important collections consist of 226,000 objects, 1.2 km long archives and 197,500 books.