08 Dec Leo, the Lion-Hearted

I know just enough about my father to wish I knew more.

He was in the middle of a brood of 11 children, born and raised on a farm in rural Quebec, near the US border. He attended school only through the sixth grade, but to me he always had the wisdom of a really intelligent, well-educated person.

After sixth grade he went to work in the lumber camps, working both sides
I know just enough about my father to wish I knew more.

He was in the middle of a brood of 11 children, born and raised on a farm in rural Quebec, near the US border. He attended school only through the sixth grade, but to me he always had the wisdom of a really intelligent, well-educated person.

After sixth grade he went to work in the lumber camps, working both sides of the US and Canadian border. He would continue to work cutting small and monstrous sized trees for the rest of his life either full time or as a second (sometimes third) job. My mother remarked that the life in the camps was so rigorous, and scarce on proper nutrition for a then 13 year old, that he would not reach his biologically appointed height. “He would have been six-feet tall if he had been fed adequately,” she would say. He measured about 5’7”.

That early work experience may have contributed to his short stature, and it certainly contributed to the size and strength of his forearms. They could be compared favorably to the cartoon character Popeye. He never bragged but his friend told me he probably was the strongest man in town, if you were discussing arm strength.

He was an emotional and passionate man when giving his opinion, especially in the area of morality or ethics. Although he was an unswerving follower of Catholicism, he mixed mercy and love with the fiery righteousness of a Baptist preacher. He adored my mother and got along well with all women, having had 5 sisters but he did not hesitate at home to share his views about how they should dress modestly. The memory that comes to mind here was when the family was watching the attractive Anita Bryant sing a patriotic song on television; he abruptly got up from the sofa, turned the television off, and said, “No one needs to watch that.” For my father Miss Bryant, a politically conservative activist and American singer, had lost her appeal for wearing a dress he felt was unbecoming for a woman. Fortunately, God took him to heaven before he saw what female entertainers would wear (or not wear) in the coming decades.

Leo loved his big family in Coaticook, Quebec but decided sometime in his forties that he would relocate closer to his work in the United States. My sister and I were to decide exactly, or so we thought, if it would be Vermont or New York. We didn’t know anything about Vermont, but we knew from watching television crime shows that people in New York, criminals or bystanders, were shot daily in broad daylight. We moved to Vermont.

Because he always worked in the woods, he was very familiar with wildlife and on one family Sunday walk he gently picked up a very long black snake and let it go through his hands from one side of the dirt road to the other. No fear, no explanation, he seemed very at home in nature. However, it was there that he had a near fatal accident. Working alone in the woods, he was cutting a fallen tree into smaller sections. The chainsaw he was using glanced off the top of a cut branch and went deep into his leg below the knee. He crawled out of the forest to get help and was later told by the attending doctor that he was a dime’s thickness from severing the femoral artery. If it had been severed he would have slipped into unconsciousness and then into death within a few minutes.

He always loved children and fathered 7 children in the first ten years of marriage. Unfortunately there were 3 miscarriages and 2 sons who died very young (at 40 days, and 2 years old). Two daughters lived. When grandchildren came along, he wanted to be with them everywhere. So he would take his folded up lawn chair and place it in the middle of their games in the backyard. He engaged with them every way he could and would banter with them in conversation. When asked by his grandson JD why he smoked, he quickly answered, “Why do you chew gum?” He would ride in the car with two of them standing up in the back, no seatbelts, top down in his beloved mint green convertible.

His greatest battle was with alcoholism. After moving to the United States, my mother started working in a restaurant, and that entailed working every night Monday to Saturday from four o’clock to midnight. He was alone.

I honestly don’t know if that contributed to it but their story against this supreme malice was one of love and redemption. She would come home on Saturday night, and find that he was too drunk to go from the living room to the bedroom. She would help him get there, and the only words of recrimination I ever heard were, “C’est trop fort pour lui.” (translation: “It’s too strong for him.”) Finally, after another crisis point, as a family we decided to have an AA intervention with some French Canadian men with whom he could better relate because of the culture and language.

It was a total bust. My mother took his side, and kept explaining that he really didn’t have a drinking problem.

Sundays were a more sober day, and he didn’t miss church. As his body began to fail in his 50’s, he would sometimes stay home and watch a religious program on television. It was incredibly progressive of him to announce one Sunday, that after watching an on-fire televangelist he felt that, “not all Protestants are going to hell.” We thought he’d lost his mind. He was just light years ahead of the ecumenical movement.

And somehow when I was getting married, the attending priest, who was a friend of mine and my fiance, talked to a large group of men at the bachelor party (different in those times) and said that my father was the holiest man he knew. To this day, I don’t know what he based that on (confession?), but I agree.

There is some mystery about exactly why he lost his job but he did and it prompted him to then make the decision to go into a rehab program. The withdrawal was not pleasant. After the first week he had to be in a straight jacket and babbled constantly about a big bird sitting on his head. My mother, who had been hesitant about his entering the program, thought that he was totally lost and would never be the same, would never be sane again. But after a month in detox, he came home sober.

Not completely. He drank a little, we saw the ole familiar signs but not as serious as before. His body, however, was broken. He died of esophageal varices, he was barely 60.

His legacy was the love and devotion he had for all people, especially his family. He was a righteous man, and he knew who he was and the direction he knew he must go in life. His dream was to lay a solid foundation for his children that they also would grow up in a new land full of opportunity, and always be loving and righteous themselves.