Chapter 4 A Letter from Dr. Larch
There were other orphanages in Maine. The one in Augusta, the Maine Children’s Home, was farther north than St. Cloud’s, but it was easier to get to—you could drive there.
Constance heard they had a good record of placing children in reliable homes for foster care.
“It’s still in Maine, Connie,” was all Thomas said about going to Augusta.
There was a second orphanage in Dover, one the Winslows were also worried about. The Dover Children’s Home had been founded by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union.
“They don’t say they only take children of alcoholics, Tommy,” Constance cautioned him.
“They don’t say we’ll be subjected to random sobriety tests, Connie,” Thomas told her. They were just fooling around; they weren’t really worried about the temperance part. It was the Christian part that worried the Winslows.
The Winslows had worn out their welcome at Coit House in Concord, one of the many orphanages founded for children orphaned by the Civil War.
The Winslows had found Faith’s nanny there, but they had asked too many questions about the orphanage’s affiliation to St. Paul’s School and the Episcopal Church.
With the passage of time, the Winslows would not countenance so much as a hint of religious affiliation.
They’d never made an appointment at the Daniel Webster Home in Franklin after learning it had been founded by Chaplain August Mack—the chaplain word turned away the Winslows.
“Aren’t we burning our bridges, Tommy?” Constance had asked him.
In truth, Faith’s nanny was a great girl, despite coming from Coit House; she’d not tried to brainwash Faith into becoming an Episcopalian.
The Winslows had originally thought of getting Faith’s au pair girl from a nonreligious orphanage in Berlin, in northern New Hampshire—less than sixty miles from Quebec.
The waterpower in Berlin was provided by the Androscoggin River—it ran the pulp and paper mills.
“Paper City” as Berlin was known, was so far north, so close to Quebec, there were many townspeople of French-Canadian descent; yet the orphanage in town had always been run by a doctor and nurses, not nuns.
A physician-run, nonreligious orphanage was right up the Winslows’ alley, but the name of the place put off Thomas; the Androscoggin Children’s Mission sounded Catholic to him.
The English teacher’s interpretation of the word mission might have been too literal.
“I take mission to mean ‘the sending of the Holy Spirit into the world,’ Connie,” Thomas told her.
“Perhaps the doctor didn’t mean mission in the Latin way, Tommy,” Constance cautioned him, but the Latin meaning of mission was why the Winslows had gotten Faith’s au pair girl (their first unadopted orphan) from Coit House.
Meanwhile, the name of the nonreligious orphanage in Berlin kept changing.
The word mission was the first to go. The new name was misleading in a different way.
The “Androscoggin Wayward Children’s Home” made Thomas Winslow think of the orphanage physician as a failed novelist—one who couldn’t do titles.
The word wayward made it sound like the children were responsible for being orphaned.
The Winslows were told that a third name was found, thanks to one of the nurses.
“That doctor should not be allowed to name anything, Connie—not even a new medicine!” Thomas told her.
“More to the point, Tommy—certainly not a new orphan,” Constance corrected him.
“Right you are, Connie,” Thomas said; he was gracious when he was bested.
And because one of the nurses (not the orphanage physician) got the name right, the Winslows would take their second and third wards of the state from the Androscoggin Children’s Shelter in Berlin.
For no better reason, Constance wondered, than it wasn’t in Maine?
The Winslows would like Dr. Roland Remillard and his nurses a lot.
“They were certainly French Canadians, Connie, but there was not a crucifix in sight,” Thomas had observed, to his satisfaction.
Nurse Bergeron was their favorite, but Nurse Pinette was very nice.
The two au pair girls the Winslows took from the Androscoggin Children’s Shelter, Lucie and Denise, were unadopted French Canadians.
Those two wards of the state were wonderful young women.
As the Winslows observed, Lucie occasionally went to Mass; Denise did not.
In southeastern New Hampshire, the townspeople of Pennacook were not as accustomed to French Canadians as their neighbors up north; yet even the ladies of the town loved Lucie and Denise.
There was nothing not to like about those orphans from the Androscoggin.
The good results were presented to Constance as a fait accompli.
She knew her Tommy was dead set against going anywhere but Berlin for Honor’s nanny.
A shortage of fourteen- or fifteen-year-old girls at the Androscoggin Children’s Shelter was what worried Constance.
She needn’t have worried that Berlin would run out of unadopted orphans.
As Lucie would one day tell the Winslows about being abandoned at the Androscoggin, “We were transitoire the whole time we were there, just waiting for someone to take us.”
“If nobody wants you till you’re fourteen or fifteen, you’ll always be transitoire—that’s just what it’s like to be an unadopted orphan,” Denise told the Winslows.
Those two au pair girls spoke excellent English.
Constance always said that Lucie and Denise must have found it less painful to say “transitory” in French.
“Right you are, Connie,” her husband said. Their Hope and their Prudence would excel in the French they took in school, because of the help they had from those wonderful French Canadians.
As for the French-Canadian kids they met in the Pennacook public school, Lucie and Denise had befriended them.
Lucie and Denise were surprised that most of the French Canadians in Pennacook didn’t speak French.
(It wasn’t that way in Berlin.) The Pennacook French-Canadian kids didn’t even take French in school.
Lucie and Denise had met some of their classmates’ parents, too, and they didn’t speak French at home.
Occasionally, there were grandparents who spoke French—not willingly, Lucie and Denise told the Winslows.
Speaking French had isolated them, the grandparents said to Lucie and Denise.
“I don’t want my grandkids to speak French—if they start speaking French, my grandkids will be as isolated as me! ” one of the grandparents told Lucie.
It turned out that half the French-Canadian kids Lucie and Denise had met in school came from one Pennacook family.
The Winslows weren’t surprised. The Beaudette clan was renowned for procreation.
In a different way, the townspeople of Pennacook were as unkind about the Beaudettes as they were about the Winslows.
No one in town would accuse the Winslows of overbreeding, but even the ladies of the town said the Beaudettes were “breeding like rabbits.”
The Winslows’ French-Canadian nannies took pity on the Beaudettes, as did Thomas and Constance Winslow.
The Beaudettes were nice to everyone, their nonstop childbearing notwithstanding.
The mother and father, Josephine and Antoine, had only girls—one after another, until Josephine was too old.
The Beaudette girls were good-natured about having too many sisters to count.
The townspeople of Pennacook were of the opinion that old Antoine must have wanted a boy; this was why he couldn’t stop.
The ladies of the town were more of the opinion that Josephine couldn’t say no.
Just look what became of those Beaudette girls.
Some of those girls got pregnant when they were still in high school.
Almost all the Beaudette girls had babies instead of going to college; the one who went to college, Chantal, was the only one who spoke French.
And those Beaudette girls mostly had more girls; there were only four Beaudette boys in the whole family.
Those boys behaved themselves. They stayed in school; all four finished college.
Except for Arnaud, they married late and had small families.
Arnaud Beaudette would be Jimmy Winslow’s friend—he was the only Beaudette to attend Pennacook Academy.
Chantal was the smallest and youngest of Antoine’s and Josephine’s daughters.
It was weird that Chantal was only a few years older than Arnaud, who was her nephew—one of her sisters’ children.
Poor Chantal, the ladies of the town silently commiserated with one another; they meant her clothes, the hand-me-downs.
Chantal wore the outsize blouses and sweaters of her older, bigger sisters.
“And a good thing, too, Tommy—those Beaudette girls are too well-endowed for their own good,” Constance Winslow said.
“Right you are, Connie—Chantal deserves a chance to finish school and not attract undue attention,” Thomas told her. “You’re well-enough endowed for me, Connie,” he couldn’t resist telling her.
“Stop it, Tommy,” she always said. Constance and her daughters were modestly endowed.
And Chantal Beaudette was nowhere near as broad in the beam as her older, bigger sisters; she could never wear their skirts or dresses.
No one in Pennacook had seen Chantal in a skirt or a dress.
Chantal wore jeans or slacks; they must not have been hand-me-downs, because they fit her. Jimmy Winslow loved her.