Grandpa's Legacy

[sebbel]

As I may have mentioned before my grand father was a telepone technician in the early days of telephones here in Northern New Brunswick. Due to the empoverished nature of the region the telephone was basically non existant in the Acadian Peninsula prior to the  Second World War.

My Grand Father came from a humble farming familly in the small community of Paquetville. He drop out of school in grade 4 to help on the farm. According to him it was because he could not afford shoes to go to school.

On the onset of WWII he enlisted and joined the North Shore Regiment. However at 6'6" and shaped like a fridge he was a perfect candidate to carry the field radio and he was moved to The Royal Canadian Corps of Signals were he served and was decorated for field bravery(MM).

During the war he also received an eduation in electronics and telecommunication. Once he return he joined the newy formed St-Isidore and Paquetville Telephone Comapny before it was purchased by the New Brunswick Telephone company, later  NBTel and now part of Bell Alliant.

The rumour is that my grandfather was so massive and strong  that he could dig a hole, unload and install a telephone pole all by himself!  

The local Central Office herre in my home town of Caraquet where he eventually settled was dedicated to him last year but I never took time to take a picture until now.

[AE_Collector]

Very cool Seb! I had never thought of having a CO named in the honour of someone though some of the telephone buildings (not so much CO's but more office buildings) that I know of in western Canada are named after people. Vancouvers main downtown HQ is the "William Farrell Building". BC Telephone used to be privately owned up until around 1928 or 29 when the "Gary Group" invested in it. William Farrell was the "Big Guy" back then. I need to dig out my history cause Maybe William was the son and he took over into the 30's and 40's. The William Farrell building went up about 1948 beside the old HQ building that was now beginning to fill up with bulky automatic SxS switching equipment.

In my opinion that is quite the honour of your grandfather!

PS: I rotated your second picture.

Terry

[Dennis Markham]

Great story, Seb.  Thanks for sharing that.  You should be proud of your Grandfather and I'm sure you are.

[New England Tel.]

Excellent photos & story, Seb! You and your family must be very proud!

[AE_Collector]

Here is a plaque mounted on a remote CO in British Columbia in tribute of an employee who originally surveyed for the Trans-Canada Long Distance 'lead"put through this area. The Trans-Canada line existed from the 1930's but it took a different route through this area of British Columbia and in a word was a "nightmare" to keep it working through snow storms in the winter. Right after WW2 British Columbia put a new highway in through this particular route and soon after BC telephone moved the trans-Canada LD lead from its old route to this new route which was significantly easier to maintain.

I am quite certain that this building dates from then as well used as a repeater hut along the LD Route. In later years the building housed Snow Cats for access to the Microwave site on the top of a nearby mountain. I believe that the Microwave is now decommissioned and there is a Fibre Optic fed DMS 1U remote inside providing local service to the area.

The Plaque dedicated to Seb's grandfather made me think of this somewhat similar plaque from a similar timeframe here in BC.

The plaque is located to the left of the overhead garage door in the second picture. The trailer under the roof to the right in the picture contains an abandoned 200 line SxS CO which is the subject of a retirement project of mine. I will be visiting it again this Tuesday to continue planning and scheming.

Terry