The Peculiar Case of Alphonse Brault
Sherlock Holmes solved cases through the use of deduction and the careful use of adduction. That is he collected all evidence in his mind and made logical conclusions and also he would then fill in the missing pieces with adduction or guessing in a reasonable manner. The life of Alphonse Brault is like a 1000-piece puzzle. There are 300 pieces down in order and 700 pieces are either missing or still awry. What the rest looks like, however, is already in place since a pattern has emerged.
Alphonse Brault is hurrying toward the train station with his daughter Dorila. He had her pack her bags the night before and they woke up early to catch the first train to Chicago. They were going on a new life for the third time together and this one he wanted to be stress-free. From Chicago he would catch the next day train for Edmonton. Five of his siblings were in the northern Alberta area and he would join up with them. They had written him sporadic letter telling him about the successes that they had on their homesteads since they settled there at the beginning of the decade. They would be surprised to see him and also would be secretly upset. He has been thinking of getting a homestead going for himself but never could push himself to do it.
This is early October of 1917 and this is New Bedford. Alphonse is in trouble again and is fleeing. He is an elusive character that knows how to exist at the edges of society. Until now. The Italian Mafia of New Bedford has always squeezed him for more “protection money’. Booming port cities always have a dirty side and an underbelly of characters that know how to exist in it. Sure there are the merchants, the bankers, and the mill owners. Sure there are the immigrant workers and the retail districts. There are also surely the criminals, the prostitutes, and the lunatics.
The Mafia had been building its threats since the summer began. He was getting late on payments to them. Business was good but he liked to gamble and he liked to buy his many girlfriends gifts. There was no waiting around this time. The final threat came the afternoon before. They had threatened the life of him and his daughter. Dorila had always been the one ray of goodness in his life and his heart. There was no way that he would ever let anything bad happen to her. He was a rotten father and a conniving person but there was always this daughter to give him some hope for a better life.
The trip was all to the west for the two days. The sun would not be in their eyes as they looked to a better future. He bought the two tickets from the $1000 he removed from the back that morning. He felt a relief as he stepped into the train. Alberta or bust would be his motto for two days.
Alphonse Brault was born in Quebec in 1873 to poor parents of Acadian extraction. His father Damase had lived in an orphanage until he was in his mid-teens even though his parents were still alive. The poverty of the family was too extreme to keep him. Damase had promised to himself that he would be a great father to his children and I am sure that he was. He married Olympe Gendreau in 1863 and they like nearly all Quebec family had many children – 17 in number. Some would become nuns, some homestead farmers in Alberta, and one a barber – postmaster. Usually there is some resemblance between the personality of the parents and each of the children. The Brault was like that with many with healthy domestic attitudes and strong work ethics. But remember the nursery rhyme
One flew east, One flew west,
One flew over the cuckoo’s nest
Some of the Brault family settled east in the eastern townships of Quebec and towns of New England. Some of the Brault family settled west in Alberta. But Alphonse selected to go the way of lunacy. Psychopathy is characterized by restlessness, promiscuity, morbid lack of remorse, superficial charm, irresponsibility, and impulsivity. A person is born with it at a rate of about one-percent of the human population. One is born with it since it is a genetic problem just as a certain percentage of people will have any problem caused by DNA. Alphonse has all the characteristics of a psychopath but he was also brought up in a Quebec culture that placed a high premium on morals. Bad people are only bad some of the time in such a society and that was what he became – a sometimes bad person.
Alphonse went to school in Weedon in the eastern townships. Usually, this would be a trivial detail but he had two schoolmates – Edmond Fontaine and Eliza Hade. Both of these youngsters were from migrant farm families. They moved with the seasons from villages in the eastern townships of Quebec. Edmond was one year ahead of both Eliza and Alphonse but that did not matter much since school was flexible to the children of farmers. Students would go to class for three months and then leave for three months. Nothing was settled. Not school – not work – not home. Alphonse, Edmond, and Eliza became best friends with each other. They would only see each other for about half the year but they understood each other’s difficult life. Each would end their school career at a very young age as all Quebec farm children did but they still were migrant workers roaming between the same four towns – Scotstown, Weedon, Wolfeston, and West Bury. As their childhood blurred into the distance, each picked up a new trade along the way. Eliza loved to sew and care for her young brothers, Alphonse loved to construct houses and ride horses, and Edmond loved to hunt and fish. They would still stay in touch often and their friendships would change. Eliza as she turned into a teenager became the beauty of the county.
Eliza Hade had been left fatherless by one year old. Her father died before the birth of her brother occurred leaving her mother Elise with much to deal with. Before Eliza turned three she had a new stepfather and then two brothers and one sister came into the family in the next four years. She had been brought with strict morals but during her teen years she had many suitors. Edmond Fontaine was always a favorite of hers and when he started coming around more often she was overjoyed. In June 1893, when she was 17 and he 19, they wed in Scotstown at the Saint Paul Church. Edmond was a hard worker and he hit the fields early in the day each and every day. He had a new family and soon he would have a new daughter Louise. They would board at a different farmhouse each season but their life was better since they were happy together. Edmond still enjoyed his hunting and would go out whenever the opportunity arose.
One such day did occur on Tuesday, August 7, 1894. Alphonse Brault with his young brother Joseph Brault had asked Edmond to go hunting. On a bright, hot August day farming in the heat was out of the question so Edmond agreed. They each got their shotguns since each was an avid hunter. Edmond was living in Scotstown and the Brault brothers in a nearby village. They agreed to go down into a meadow section beyond the farmland of the town. They broke up as they near the brook that was at the eastern edge of the town. Edmond went into a grove of trees as much to get away from the blazing sun as to hide himself from the wildlife. Joseph was distracted and forked in the other direction since he thought he saw something in the brush. Alphonse stayed down the middle and stopped behind a large tree. He had slyly watched where Edmond had gone. He also slyly had watched his brother go off to the brush away from his vision. Alphonse knew his time was now and hid by crouching behind the large tree. He pointed his gun toward Edmond who was looking the other way.
Alphonse then called to his brother telling him that he had shot a large bird. They both hurried to the area. Joseph had gone quickly and was there first. He noticed that it was Edmond and he let out a scream. Joseph was only 13 years old and this was one of the first times he ever hunted. The sight of death was new to him. Alphonse tried to keep his brother calm but to no avail. They were only one hundred yards from the nearest road behind them and they notice a farmer leading his horse drawn cart. They called to him and he came near. They told him how Edmond had been accidently shot. He agreed to bring them and the body back to the village.
Forensics were non-existent in 1894. Footprint and fingerprint analysis was in its rudimentary stage. If a criminal was not caught red-handed nor with eyewitnesses around, then the best that could happen is that a lawyer would break the criminal in the courtroom. The police questioned Alphonse but he explained that it was an accident. The hunters had lost track of where each other were. Hunting is dangerous and there is at least one hunting accident each year in New England and the same rate in southern Quebec. The police could do nothing. Psychopaths are cold-hearted and cold-blooded. Killing a man was about as vile as stepping on a bee that had just stung you.
Alphonse had harbored a secret love for Eliza since his early teen years. She came and went so quickly that he could never get her to take a fancy to him. Always an envious and vindictive person, his love for Eliza became so deep that he contemplated killing Edmond. As other girls refused him, his envy deepened beyond control. During the summer of 1894, he saw his chance and knew the best way was via a mysterious hunting accident. His young brother was a great alibi. He knew his brother was naïve and new to hunting and that he focused quickly when events happened. By the next spring, his brother Joseph was dead from a horse riding accident. Alphonse was a great lover of horses and kept three on his small farm. One day he let Joseph borrow the wildest of the lot. Joseph was found the next day a half mile from the cabin. His head had been smashed in perhaps by the hoof of the horse. Joseph was dead and so was the only possible witness to Alphonse’s crime.
The police were the one’s that told Eliza about her husband’s death but Alphonse came by a day after the funeral with his brother. He told her how sorry he was and that it was a horrible accident. They all started crying about their dear friend. Eliza believed all that she was told and forgave Alphonse. She was a very forgiving person. Alphonse however had another goal in mine. He invited her to go to the grave with him so they could lie flowers on the plot. She accepted and they went the next day. Each day he would come over to help with household tasks such as chopping wood or running errands. To such a person there is no true remorse and his only goal was to wed her. She had fallen into his trap since she was sincere and thought all others were too.
Alphonse Brault and Eliza Hade married in September 1895. Her stepfather had died by then. Her closest companion was her brother Antoine. Antoine did not trust Alphonse. His emotions did not seem sincere to him and his dark staring eyes seemed inhuman. There was nothing he could do by the end but he watched his sister from afar throughout her life. There was already a child Louise and then there would be more – Antoine Brault was born in July 1896. He was named after his Uncle Antoine who would be his godfather. Life would settle down for the new family. Alphonse would be a home contractor in Compton County and Eliza would be a housewife instead of a migrant farmer. Adrien was born next in 1898. A girl Rose was born in 1900.
Everyone has a soft spot and that is their hobby in life. Alphonse’s soft spot was his horses. He wanted to raise his children to be horse riders as he was. When Dorila was born in 1901, she became the joy of his life. As she grew, Alphonse got her into horses. She was a tomboy type and loved being outdoors with the horses either feeding them or riding them. By the time she was seven she was already taking lessons from her father.
More children would come and go though. Marie Antoinette in 1903 would die within months of birth. Her brother Antoine would die the same year. Joséphine would be born prematurely in 1904. Marie Louise Germaine in 1906 would die months later. Germaine born in 1907 would live until 2002. Then sickly Sylvia would be born in 1909.
This large family needed to be feed and thus Alphonse moved more into house building in the Brompton and Sherbrooke areas. Sherbrooke and its suburbs had a blooming industrial base and the population increased greatly. He was a good worker by day but by night a shifty person. He loved drinking with his peers, gambling on horses, and the company of woman. He gave excuse after excuse to his wife where he was going. She understood her husband needed to be away with customers to draw up plans about houses. She understood that her husband needed a hobby outside the home and thus the horse racing was accepted.
Alphonse had come to the vision of his next goal. Make money off the gambling, drinking, and prostituting of Sherbrooke by opening a tavern at the northern outskirts of the city. As visitors came from the northern cities to Sherbrooke, they would see the tavern and come back there at night. A tavern in the beginning of the 20th century was a multipurpose building that was a waypoint for travellers. It would serve food and offer rooms in the front, but sometimes offer drinks and gambling in the back. His wife agreed that the tavern would be a great moneymaker. Supplement the home construction business with a weekend business of a tavern. Alphonse built the tavern in 1903 within a few months. Soon it was one of the most popular places outside the big city of Sherbrooke. All businesses there were actually legal but frowned upon by the temperance movement of pre-prohibition Canada.
The temperance movement was the precursor to the Prohibition Era in both Canada and in the USA. Women would hold protest meetings right outside taverns and bars. Holding signs to disgrace tavern owners and smashing glass inside bars. The laws were not behind them, but still the movement was effective in that the neighborhood did not want the bars there in the first place. This did not bother Alphonse – nothing much flustered him. But an event did happen in the summer of 1909. Something caused him to get very upset or bothered. Not his family but something happened at either the tavern or in his social life that caused him to flee. No one has stepped forward to report what it was and no document or article exists to guide me. But in August of 1909 he fled Quebec with his favorite daughter Dorila for Massachusetts in the USA. They gave aliases as they passed through Newport Vermont’s entry point. But by the end of August 1909 they were in New Bedford. What could he have told his wife? What goals did he have in mind in the new country? Maybe the police were after him or maybe his gambling debts were large. Leaving his wife, eight months pregnant was tough so he must have left a lot of money.
Eliza Hade was a patient and kind person. What ever she was told she accepted since she loved her husband. Anyone of her brother-in-laws could have helped her. The farm and tavern needed to be sold. Her half-sister Eveline Dion was a great help in taking care of Eliza children. Alphonse told Eliza some convenient lie and told her that he needed to leave for Massachusetts the next morning. He told her that he would write back to her when he was settled there. He also told her that he wanted to bring Dorila with him. These all surprised Eliza but there was no way she could protest. She knew very little about what was going on but she trusted him.
Alphonse and Dorila arrived in New Bedford in late August of 1909. They settled into a rooming house for a while. She needed to attend school so he signed her up for 3rd grade at the public school. He needed a job quick and so he obtained one at a local pool hall. That was a profession he knew well and it was good for him to learn English quickly since there was a lot of socializing. His brother Edmond would join him in January of 1910. They would get a three-bedroom apartment at 41 Beetle Street later that month and also get a business front on the ground floor of the same building. Alphonse would open up his own billiard establishment and Edmond would have a barber’s chair in the same space. A daughter was born to Al and Eliza in September of 1909 right before he left. He wrote to Eliza to remain in Sherbrooke for at least a year since the child Sylvia was a bit sickly. He was quite busy in his new home city and enjoyed the freedom to establish himself. He had thoughts about other businesses that would bring in more money. Every Sunday he would bring Dorila to the New Bedford Trotting Track to watch the horses. He would bet on them and she would just enjoy the sights.
Edmond was not happy being in New Bedford. His barbering business was not good since there was so much competition. Three of his brothers had headed for Alberta that summer of 1910 and he wanted to join them. Besides living with Alphonse was tough for him since Al was so restless at night. Like being with a tiger – Edmond thought. He told Alphonse about his plan to go to Edmonton. Alphonse did not care – his work was improving to the point that he could expand his business ventures. Thus Edmond left in the late fall of 1910 and Alphonse moved his residence but kept his business going at the same place.
Prostitution was legal in Massachusetts since the colonial days. Hard to imagine now but it was not until 1918 that it became illegal. Alphonse knew that letting a room out to a prostitute and her customer for a while could build up money fast. So the apartment he just moved out of he kept for business – the prostitute business. That was a booming trade in the growing port of New Bedford and the area he was in was good for it. Sailors visited the saloons and restaurants around the area frequently. So in November of 1910, Alphonse had two businesses going. His wife Eliza back in Sherbrooke was writing him every week and now she was pressuring him to let her go there. He had dutifully been sending back money to her and writing about how his work was going well. Problem was that two of the daughters were born sickly – Josephine now 6 was still very small since she had been born premature and Sylvia now 1 could not walk well due to arthritis. He told them to wait until the spring when school was done for all the children and then come.
The plan worked. He told a few prostitutes in the area that he had a temporary room for rent by the hour. Word got around and his future plans were for even more. By early in 1911, he had enough money saved up to rent out a building on 25 South Second Street in New Bedford. He used the front of the ground floor as a restaurant and the ten boarding rooms inside he used as habitation for his family when they came in June and for temporary rentals to customers. He moved his pool hall across the street to 10 South Second Street. His wife arrived in June along with four of his daughters. It was easy to run the businesses since they were all nearby. He had hired three managers for the two businesses – with he running the restaurant at night. It was also easy to keep the goings on from his wife since their rooms had windows only to the back and she was quite busy with housework and their daughters. This plan was only temporary he knew since the family needed a better place to live.
Eliza on her part decided to take some sewing work in to supplement the income. She had been a seamstress part time in Quebec and she was good at it. She was a hard working person and loving all the work she had – housework and sewing. She did worry that Alphonse would come home late into the night but he told her that both businesses took a lot of his time. She worried but believed him but she had a new concern – she was pregnant again. Adrienne Brault was born April 16 of 1912. The growing family needed more space and besides Alphonse wanted to keep the seedy side of his businesses fully away from his wife. By October, he was looking in Fairhaven, the town to the east of New Bedford, for a house. He had found a comfortable looking one at 58 Hawthorne Street. He decided to rent one of the floors there and had moved his family by November. The dual plan worked well since the 8-member family fit well into the new rooms and he was able to concentrate on his work more. He had told his wife while in New Bedford to never bother his restaurant work and she complied. Alphonse also had an excuse now to stay out later.
Gambling was legal in Massachusetts until 1916. The temperance movement across the USA had no only alcohol use on its agenda but also the gambling and prostitution. This trio was acknowledged to damage the lives of many. Alphonse was into all three by now since he had turned his pool hall into also a gambling den. Prostitutes would frequent both places. His monthly income grew and he needed it since in 1913 there would be three more members to the Brault family. Ovila Brault was born to Alphonse and Eliza on the 15th of June 1913. With so many young children in Fairhaven, Eliza wrote to her half-sister Eveline Dion in Sherbrooke Quebec. They had formulated a plan years before that Eveline, who was caring for Eliza’s daughter Josephine in Quebec, would join them in the USA. Now was a great time since school was out and Josephine was growing larger leaving her sickly nature behind. The family now had 11 members with 3 of them being pre-school age. Eliza and Eveline loved each other and thus the household was quite harmonious. They both worked hard at housework and at sewing.
Eliza’s oldest daughter Louise was a great help in the past years but now she had a boyfriend and would soon marry. Louise Fontaine was always suspicious of stepfather Alphonse Brault. She could see his behaviour better now that she was in her late teens. She never wanted to discuss him with her mother and with Dorila since there was so much love there, but with her 13 year old sister Rose and her aunt Eveline, she had quite discussions. Louise had left school at age 15 and had been working for four years outside the home at a factory job. Sometimes she walked by the restaurant and noticed the seedy characters that went in there and often wondered to herself. Eveline also worried for the family since Alphonse came home a couple of times a week quite drunk. Louise Fontaine married Alfred Morin on the 10th of February 1914 in Fairhaven. The ceremony after the church wedding was held in a small hall. Louise knew that she would no longer be able to look after her young sisters since she would live elsewhere in Fairhaven. During the ceremony, she took Eveline aside and told her to watch over her sisters well – all of them. Eveline knew what she meant.
Within a few weeks, Eliza Hade would be pregnant for the 13th time in her life. This number is not unusual for an immigrant family in that era. That only 7 of her children would live past 10 years old was also not unusual. On November 8 of 1914, Antonio Brault was born to this large Fairhaven family. He was a healthy baby and his chances of living were high since he was away from the squalid French ghetto of New Bedford. Eveline and Eliza kept working hard as usual but Alphonse was near his breaking point. His life at the restaurant was carefree and he was able to socialize with customers and waitresses. At home, it was crying young children and nagging women. He would always stay late at work to avoid this but it was getting harder to do so.
On a Thursday night in late February of 1915, he came home drunk as usual. His infant son Antonio was crying and he screamed at his wife to keep it quiet. In the chaos, Alphonse picked up the baby and shook it violently for twenty seconds. He placed it back in its crib and went to his room. Both Eliza and Eveline, who also had wakened and rushed to the room, went to the baby in great concern. They tried to caress the infant but got no response. Antonio’s skin grew paler and moist. Eliza was horrified and screamed at Alphonse through the bedroom door “You killed the baby!”. He came out of his room and walked to the child. He glanced at it and then went back to his room again and locked it. Eveline and Eliza were both sobbing. They did not know what to do. It was now 3 in the morning. Both whispered to each other for the next couple of hours through their sobs. Alphonse needed to go to protect the other children. They did not however want to report this to the police.
By dawn, Alphonse was milling about his bedroom. Eliza knocked lightly on the door. Alphonse grumbled a bit before coming out. Eliza with Eveline by his side told Alphonse that she did not want him there anymore – that he needed to leave immediately. She had packed his clothes and packed him some food. She also told him that he needed to bring the dead child to the medical examiner in New Bedford. Shaken baby syndrome was not well known of 100 years ago. The symptoms were obscure. Death was prevalent among children in this city. There were 20 deaths a day for the examiner to look into with 10 of those being of children. Alphonse walked the mile to the medical examiner’s office. Daniel O’Brien associate examiner was on duty at this early hour. Eliza had wrapped the child in a blanket and now Alphonse handed the dead child to the doctor and he went into his office. No symptoms were apparent to his eye. No rashes, no cuts, no bruises, no wounds, nothing. This was a city where death haunted the children and this doctor had seen tens of thousands of child deaths. This one seemed peculiar but he had no technology to aid him. After ten minutes in his office, he came out and handed Alphonse a death certificate.
Alphonse had gotten out of that ordeal as he had gotten out of so much before. He hurried to his restaurant in the cold February morning. He knew that he could stay a few weeks there in one of the spare rooms. It would not be pleasant since the street was a busy one and hence lots of noise. Most of the customers he liked but some talked poorly about him and some he thought poorly of. Most of all he knew that he was going to miss Dorila the most. She was always his favorite daughter and always would be. They rode horses down at the stables a lot on Sundays and he would miss her then the most. He would not miss his other children nor his wife. So much crying and illness at that home. And there would come more problems from that direction. In January, a regular customer at the restaurant and a regular user of the rooms for prostitutes had called Alphonse aside one day. This man knew that his daughter Rose was now 14 years old and had yet to have a boyfriend. He knew Alphonse well enough to talk about anything with him. He offered Alphonse $30 and $30 more to Rose, if she would provide services to him for an hour in a backroom. Alphonse agreed at once to this proposal. To was an incredible sum of money – more that a mill workers monthly wage.
Later that month Alphonse told Rose that he would need extra help one evening. She had been working for the restaurant one day a week any way since the previous summer. Hence, she quickly obliged. He had arranged a time with the customer too and when he came he told him to quickly go to an upper room. Five minutes later Alphonse motioned to Rose when the restaurant was not too busy. He told her to go to the upper room of the building to fetch some spare plates. An hour later the man had left out a back door. Alphonse went quickly to the room. Rose was sobbing quietly. Alphonse told her to hush and handed her $30. He told her to go home and tell no one about it ever.
Dorila was in 8th grade and her last year of school. She was a good student but knew that mill work and being a mother was her future. Eliza had told her children that June would be their last month in Fairhaven and hence their last at the Fairhaven schools. They needed to move to New Bedford that summer to get a lower rent. She had saved money and was able to pay the rent but it would run out soon now that Alphonse was out of the home for good. Eliza did not trust Alphonse at all and to that end she had sent her two youngest remaining children – Adrienne and Ovila – to an orphanage in Fall River. Orphanages were run by the Catholic nuns and accepted all children wether they were true orphans or not. She wanted it to be in Fall River 5 miles to the west since Alphonse would never be able to find the children there in order to take them away or to hurt them. That would leave only a 7-member household for the next few years, five daughters – Rose, Dorila, Germaine, Josephine, and Sylvia – and then Eliza and Eveline. Only the last three daughters would be in school in September of 1915. Rose would find steady work at a maid in a home and Dorila would find work as a loom worker in a cotton mill.
Eliza had told her daughters to stay away from Alphonse and his restaurant. For Rose that was easy and her work was in Fairhaven anyway. Dorila was still in school in the spring of 1915. In mid-April, Rose had asked Dorila about menstruation and pregnancy. Dorila wondered why but answered as best she could. They were the only two teenager girls in the neighborhood but had asked their mother a few questions in the past. A week later after the first discussion, Rose confided in Dorila that was not having periods any more and that she thought she was pregnant. Dorila was aghast and asked how that had happened since she knew that her sister had never had a boyfriend. When questioned, Rose lied and stated that a boy two streets away from their home in Fairhaven had gotten her pregnant. The conversation stopped there but Dorila brooded over a solution for a few days. Their mother would be furious since there was already money problems in the home and many children. Dorila thought that perhaps if she told her father, then he would be able to come up with a good solution. Maybe he could give Rose a little bit of money each week or could pay for an apartment for her.
Dorila went to see her father the next week after school. She had to hurry since her mother did not want her out so long after to school. She went briskly to her father in the restaurant and whispered to him away from any of the tables. Alphonse turned pale. He was a quick thinker and came up with a plan immediately. He told Dorila to go home and tell Rose to come by after work tomorrow. Yes he would get her a room to live in. Away she went thinking that she had done the right thing and that her sister would be happy with the plans that would be in store for her.
Rose was happy to hear what Dorila had done for her. The next day she left work an hour early in order to go see her father. She did not like the restaurant but she knew that this was a great plane. Alphonse told her to follow him. He by nature of his job knew many of the underworld people of New Bedford. From grave robbers to card sharks, he knew all the shady characters. He had arranged the night before to meet with a local doctor. This doctor did illegal abortions for a hefty fee. Alphonse took Rose in the back way in order not to have her see the office in front. He told her that she would see a room to let back here. Once there the doctor quickly sedated her and performed the abortion. With proper lights in this room and without a nurse and being in a great state of anxiety and rush, the doctor did the work as needed but botched it. Rosa started bleeding so he applied a towel to the area. Out they came from the office and Alphonse quickly grabbed Rose and went down the alley. He could see that she was still groggy and bending at the waist a bit so he thought that it would be best if she slept for a bit at the restaurant. He brought her through a back door and rushed her into an upper room. He could see that she was hurting and so he brought her some ice and a new towel.
Alphonse did not expect it to be this bad so he had her sleep the night back there. He worked and later spent the night in a room near her. He would wake during the night to hear her moaning and to think about a story to have her tell her mother. About noon the next day, he had one of his waitresses help his daughter Rose to Fairhaven. The plan was to tell Eliza that Rose’s family she was a maid for had her stay late for a party at the home. Eliza would have none of it since she could see how pale and weak Rose was. Dorila stayed in her room since she was scared to get involved. Gradually, Rose opened up about the situation and told the story little by little to her mother. Eliza was horrified. She could not let Alphonse get away with this behaviour. She calmed Rose down enough to have her get to sleep. Then Eliza left for New Bedford. She had never been this outraged in her life. When she got there she stormed in and charged up to Alphonse. “What have you done to my daughter?” she yelled. She told him that she would tell the police this time. She would not stand for his evil doings any more. She left. As she walked back home, she felt relieved that finally she had done what was needed for a long time. Alphonse was visibly shaken by the ordeal. He truly believed her when she claimed that she would call the police.
Alphonse was for one of the few times ever unnerved. He rushed to his room and packed quickly. He always was good at devising plans. This time it was drastic. He told his manager that he was closing up shop on both sides of the street. The owner of the building lived only two blocks away and Alphonse stopped there and told him the business was not going well and that all was closing. He had many connections in the horse racing trade and so he went to the New Bedford Trotting Park to sleep that night. It was away from the police and his family. Eliza ended up not telling the police but Alphonse did not know that for sure. He stayed at the trotting park for the summer and fall working as a helper and sleeping there for the night security shift. Since his wife did not seem to follow up on her threat, he started to device his next plan. Eliza did end up moving the family back to New Bedford to 61 Bullard Street. She also needed for the first time in her life to go to a job outside the home. She still had her sister with her and she took care of the children in the afternoon when they came home.
Alphonse was on the prowl again through the streets of New Bedford. At night he would wander the streets looking for the best location to set up shop again to make some more money. His last restaurant was near the New Bedford Police Station near Spring Street. This one he wanted in that area since it was close to the ports and thus the prostitutes. The police station was undergoing major renovations that year. So much so that the area had a lot of traffic. He decided to place his new restaurant near the old but two streets more away from the ports on School Street behind a movie theatre. He set up shop once more in December of 1915 and as always his business grew rapidly. The place was small so it was more like a tavern than a restaurant. This time he had no reason to obtain an apartment so he simply lived in a room above and to the back of the tavern. He kept things simple this time. He only hired a couple of waitresses and tried to hold the prostitutes down to a lower level.
He did still go down to the trotting park every Sunday afternoon to race the horses and throw bets down on races he was not in. Business was good enough at night that some times he could go to weekday races. He dreamed of some day owning horses again. The passion of riding them was strong. He still got to see Dorila about once a month too. She would come over to the tavern whenever she got out early from the mills. She would turn 15 in a few months. They would converse about horses and their former life back on the farms in Quebec. They would both agree that someday they would make their life better. Dorila would also discuss her home life but that would not interest Alphonse. He was into his business, horses, and girlfriends. Only problem now in his life was the pesky mafia was gaining more power as the temperance movement headed toward the prohibition movement.
Alphonse could never keep the mob happy. He was a disagreeable guy and they were greedy. When Dorila turned 16 in the spring of 1917, he talked to her about moving to Alberta with him. They could get a stake on a homestead land. He had been saving money and also corresponding with his brothers Rodrique, Arthur, Edmond, and Eugene and especially with his sister Emma all in Alberta. That summer was rough in the cities of New Bedford. Gambling had been outlawed in the fall of 1916 and the mafia tried harder and harder to get more money from taverns and bar owners. By the September of 1917, Alphonse had had enough.
Clyde was a growing homestead town in 1917. The land was tough to farm and the winters were harsh. Slightly more than half of all homesteaders failed. It took a great deal of hard work to harvest a crop in the short season and to keep the domestic animals corralled. Alphonse got help from his brothers in the beginning. Seed was expensive and it took many to build a house and barn. He knew how to focus on tasks and he had plenty of experience in the house-building trade. Little by little, he developed the plot into a viable farm and each spring he would put as much money back into the development of it as possible. By the spring of 1921, he was able to file for permanent ownership of the homestead land. On the application, he dutifully placed the amount of crop he harvested each year and the number of each animal species he had. The work must have been hard but he was good at it.
His daughter Dorila lived with her aunt in a home across the lake from him. She was wedded to Israel Fortier after being in Clyde only 17 months. She too would take out a homestead with her husband. They would succeed at the farm but she would need to also work at the Clyde Railroad Station running the restaurant. She would give birth to 7 children. Her life had changed just as much as her father’s had. Alphonse would visit her often and was proud of her and her growing family. He himself was succeeding enough by the mid-1920s to buy a couple of horses.
He always did love his horses and having Dorila ride them with him reminded him of the old days. In fact, his break from his tormented past was complete. His behavior was vastly better then in the past. This was the Prohibition Era in Canada as it was in the USA. It is not know if he was involved in illegal sales of alcohol. All that is known is that he was vastly more responsible to himself and his family. It is a bit sad to learn that he would have such a traumatic ending to his life.
On a cold January morning in 1933, Alphonse was emptying some waste from his home into the lake by his home. There were a few concrete steps from his land down to the lake. It was icy on the steps but he had descended them before many times. This time he slipped the slammed his head in the corner edge of one of the steps. He lie there unconscious for a couple of hours before a neighbor spotted him. He was rushed by ambulance to nearby Westlock Hospital. This was a new facility and had modern equipment.
During the weeks that ensued, it was obvious that his head trauma had hurt his ability to walk a straight line and had caused some disorientation. Within a few months he was able to be admitted to a rehab and by the early summer was released to his home. He was developing his ability to walk and to focus again and there was hope in the family. On August 11 of that year, however, there was a major setback. He had seizures at his home and was again rushed to Westlock Hospital. Two days later he died.
His funeral mass was well attended since he had many brothers in the area. Four priests helped with the mass including the old Clyde priest that he had known for many years. He was later that week buried at the Clyde Cemetery. His dear daughter Dorila would be buried there 2 short years later. It is not known if either of them have a gravestone. Alphonse had lived 58 years – the first 20 and the last 16 were relatively tranquil. The middle 22 years, however, caused dismay to his family and still cause concern amidst his offspring to this day.