Collection search - Love, Francis Henry - Interview

Record information – Brief

1

Love, Francis Henry - Interview

Item number (ISN):

379001

Series title:

[The Great War and Canadian Society]

Hierarchical level:

Item (Accession level)

Date:

1974-07-28

Item number (ISN):

379001

Type of material:

Sound recordings

Found in:

Archives / Film, Video and Sound

Link to this record

Add to My Research

Link to this record

This link identifies the web page describing this particular record. Unlike the temporary link in your browser, this link will allow you to access, and reference, this page in the future. To link to this descriptive record, copy and paste the URL where ever needed (wiki, blog, document).

Sign in

Sign in to start saving records using My Research

Sign in
Record information – Details

Fonds/collection:

THE GREAT WAR AND CANADIAN SOCIETY PROJECT

Accession:

1975-0098

Media:

Sound

Part:

1 of 1

Production date:

1974-07-28

Production company:

Opportunities for Youth

Description:

Show detail Hide detail

Interview of Francis Henry Love, age 73, who was born in Lancaster, Ontario in 1901. This is part of a series of recorded interviews with elderly citizens who lived in Canada during the period of World War I. The interview material consists of their opinions and observations about the war, the war years, and the effect on Canadian society during and after WWI. Love's parents came from Dickinson’s Landing and Arnprior, Ontario. He did not start school until age 8 because he could not walk through the snowdrifts. He talks about: Lancaster, its location along the Grand Trunk Railway; Lancaster as a distribution centre for many types of products; a bank robbery that took place when he was age five; log drives along the river; fishing in the river; his father’s work as the local barber and tobacconist; his childhood home; the poor condition of the roads in the town; boarding in town while attending the country high school because the roads were so bad; how many children did not go to school; the death of his mother when he was eight; his father’s remarriage; household chores; his father’s shop; a forest fire in 1906; stories of the barber shop; the Indian list; Indians and others not being allowed to buy liquor; lumbermen coming to town; mill workers from the town; the lumber mill at the mouth of the river; the steam engine running the mill; leisure activities by the children of the community; Scots and French residents of the community; the animosity between French and English residents; his school years; playing hockey; horse racing on the frozen lake; more description of work at the lumber mill; a cheese box factory; his brother’s injury at the cheese box factory; a tinsmith injured in a logging accident; various accidents; wages for mill workers; playing around the railway tracks; his support for unions; reading books and newspapers; starting high school in 1914 just after the First World War broke out; the wave of patriotism that swept the community; enlistment, mostly by the Scots; the intensification of recruiting as the war went on; ostracism of the Scots who did not enlist; acceptance by the community that the French residents would not join up because they did not feel any loyalty to England; an incident with two Scottish boys who did not enlist; the deaths overseas of boys he knew; the death of a minister’s son and how the community mourned him as a hero; efforts to recruit boys in high school; difficulties with his high school studies; tryng to enlist at age 15 in the spring of 1916; his father’s agreeing to sign his enlistment papers; a decline in his father’s business; French boys enlisting because of unemployment; his being sent to Kingston; his brother’s insistence that he admit to his real age, which resulted in his being thrown out of the army; his brother’s going overseas and returning as a alcoholic; a story about soldiers going into battle drunk; his brother going to the U.S. and losing contact with his family for 25 years; his father’s not enlisting because his mother objected strenuously; his trying to find a job after he was kicked out of the army for being under age; getting a job as an electrical apprentice, repairing arc lights in Montreal; working in Montreal until the end of the war; getting fired to make room for returning soldiers who wanted their old jobs back; going to union meetings held only in French; going to work at a lumber camp in Sault Ste. Marie when he was 17; life in Montreal; living in Griffintown, an Irish section of Montreal; a roommate who delivered coal and pilfered some to make extra money; financial hardship; poor people helping each other out; living conditions; recreational activities such as tobogganing, playing lacrosse and going to movies and parties; going out with girls; Vaudeville acts and Burlesque; going to bars although he was under age; joining the YMCA to go swimming and read the newspaper; the Griffintown bathhouse; and reading war news in the newspaper. ~He also recalls: hobble skirts; the automobiles of the time; the staid sexual morality of the era; how women dealt with so many men being away overseas; anti-conscription riots; giving women the vote to get more support for conscription; the feeling that French people were cowards because they did not want to go overseas to fight; being picked up by a press gang because he did not have his discharge papers; how newspapers promoted patriotism; anti-French comments by Harry Lauder; girls pinning white feathers on able-bodied men who were not in uniform; payments to soldiers’ wives by a patriotic fund; reasons for enlisting, including patriotism and the desire to get away from a hard life; the standard of living in Lancaster; hearing news of the war; patriotic songs; the overall support for the war; the shelling of Paris by the Germans; the lack of awareness of misinformation or censorship; his his view that he was gullible and that city-raised people were more sceptical; believing the information that the people who started the Russian Revolution were criminals; the source of his radicalism; his belief in fair play and his later disillusionment; hearing about the Winnipeg General Strike; his work as a lumber jack; reading about the Tim Buck trial in the newspaper; postwar electrification; the cooperative farm movement; the political activities of the United Farm Workers of Ontario; his experiences in the electrical union; how the war changed small town life; sports and temperance in the town; alcoholism among town businessmen; the movement west by a lot of veterans and farmers; the collapse of the lumber industry due to over-logging and how the war stopped him from finishing his education.

Language:

English

Notes:

Show detail Hide detail

1. The interviews took place in 1974 and resulted in the publication of a book entitled "The Great War and Canadian Society" edited by Daphne Read - copyright 1978 - New Hogtown Press, Toronto.~2. Release forms, data sheets, and summary analysis/transcripts are available in binders labelled Opportunities for Youth - War and Canadian Society in VSA's audio-visual section.~3. The interviewee signed an agreement giving consent for a recording of this interview to be placed in the Public Archives of Canada for the purposes of historical research and also signed a publication agreement allowing any transcribed portions of the interview to be used in the book under the condition that no full names, addresses or phone numbers would be published.~4. Subject description is based on information found in the fact sheet, deposit agreement, publication agreement and summary analysis.

Detailed holdings information:

Show detail Hide detail

Vault ISN:

436268

Format:

SOUND

Location number:

C01350

Vault code:

GAT

Number of items:

1

Kind of sound:

R/R

Technical description:

POLY

Made from:

FROM LOANED MATERIAL

Status:

MASTER

Vault ISN:

436269

Format:

SOUND

Location number:

C01351

Vault code:

GAT

Number of items:

1

Kind of sound:

R/R

Technical description:

POLY

Made from:

FROM LOANED MATERIAL

Status:

MASTER

Vault ISN:

438126

Format:

SOUND

Location number:

A1 2007-05-0012

Number of items:

1

Kind of sound:

CD

Duration:

71:47

Status:

REF

Vault ISN:

438127

Format:

SOUND

Location number:

A1 2007-05-0013

Number of items:

1

Kind of sound:

CD

Duration:

79:28

Status:

REF

Vault ISN:

438129

Format:

SOUND

Location number:

A1 2007-05-0014

Number of items:

1

Kind of sound:

CD

Duration:

72:55

Status:

REF

Vault ISN:

736921

Format:

SOUND

Location number:

1975-0098/016
1975-0098/017
1975-0098/018

Vault code:

GAT

Number of items:

3

Kind of sound:

CASSETTE

Made from:

DEPOSIT

Status:

ORIG

Vault ISN:

1003777

Format:

SOUND

Location number:

A4 2007-05-0012
A4 2007-05-0013

Number of items:

2

Kind of sound:

CD

Made from:

C01350
C01351

Status:

MASTER

Vault ISN:

1003778

Format:

SOUND

Location number:

A4 2007-05-0014

Number of items:

1

Kind of sound:

CD

Made from:

C01350
C01351
C01352

Status:

MASTER
Ordering and viewing options

Conditions of access:

Open

Consultation copy number:

A1 2007-05-0012
A1 2007-05-0013
A1 2007-05-0014

Restrictions on consultation:

No Restrictions / Pas de restrictions

Reproduction access:

With written permission of Copyright Owner / Avec la permission écrite du détenteur des droits d'auteur

You can order materials in advance to be ready for you when you visit. You will need a user card to do this.

Cannot visit us on site? You can purchase a copy to be sent to you. Some restrictions may apply.