Exhibitions
1. Gallery of photos :
History of Hôtel-Dieu in Saint-Basile, New Brunswick (1873-1935)
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The 425 photos in black and white chosen for this gallery show the progress accomplished at the Hotel Dieu of Saint-Basile during the first sixty-two years of its existence. It also tells the hisstory of the beginnings of the parish of Saint-Basile of Madawaska and its Hotel Dieu the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph administered. In 1935, the works at Hôtel-Dieu are in full expansion: the Hospital has been moved into the oldest building in 1916, and the Academy is installed into the new wing replacint the old wodden hospital-hospice.
This virtual gallery consists of eleven thematic sections of around thirty photos each and following a chronological order. Can be seen photos of buildings, orphans and students, retired people and workers, as sell as doctors and agreat number os religious hospitallers. A complete tour of the gallery gives the visitor a chance to witness the beginning of health care in Madawaska region as well as the progress of education. Have a good visit!
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2. Gallery of photos : Sense of belonging and taking roots into Greater Madawaska (1860-1960)
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The Greater Madawaska virtual exhibition
This gallery of photos is innovative because it gives the general public interested in history a chance to visit a collection of photos illustrating the past of the people from Madawaska. Its main purposes are to give information and arouse the awareness of one's origins. Students of every age and level, genealogists, amateur historians and other visitors of our Web site will have an idea where they stand, recognize who they are, and, maybe, develop a sense of belonging. The virtual exhibition is also a mean of showing to Internet users some of the history and challenges French speaking people meet in a bilingual province, having as close neighbours the province of Québec and the United States.
Definition of Greater Madawaska
Located in north-western New Brunswick and on the north side of the St. John River, Greater Madawaska, whose population is more that 95 % French speaking, covers all of Madawaska county: it extends to the northern part of Victoria County, the western section of Restigouche County and covers a few miles on the American side of the St. John River that serves as international border. The virtual exhibition starts with photos from the north-western part of Madawaska County, sometimes called Madawaska-les-lacs or Upper-Madawaska, and tells about the following parishes: Saint-François, Connors, Clair, Baker Lake, Saint-Hilaire, Baker Brook, Saint-Jacques and Saint-Joseph. Photos from American towns, mainly Fort Kent and Frenchville, have been included. Three sections of the gallery cover the city of Edmundston, formerly called Small Falls. Next, Madawaska-Centre consists mostly of the parishes of Saint-Basile and Green River, and includes the family of Hubald O. Martin from Saint-Basile. Under Madawaska-South come Sainte-Anne, Saint-André, Saint-Léonard-ville et Saint-Léonard-Parent, as well as Van Buren, Maine. Are also considered as part of Greater Madawaska, two localities in Victoria County: the parish of Drummond and the town and region of Grand Falls. Finally, the last section representing Restigouche-West is made up of the parishes of Saint-Quentin, Kedgwick, Saint-Martin and Saint-Jean-Baptiste.
Organization of the exhibition
The descriptions and interpretations of the 502 photos brought together in this exhibition take into account the geographical, historical, economical, religious, social and cultural contexts. There are 17 groups of photos illustrating the life of people in the parishes, towns and villages of Greater Madawaska. Each category or section in the gallery of photos contains an average of thirty photos. A first selection of 295 photos was made from the three albums that Father Louis Armand Martin left to the diocese of Edmundston. Have been included in the exhibition, 92 photos borrowed from the Société historique du Madawaska and the CDEM (Centre de documentation en études madawaskayennes), and 115 photos that were lent by people interested in family history and their cultural heritage. Lenders are identified in the descriptions of the photos; if no names appear, it means that these photos are from Father Armand Martin's collection. Have a good visit!
References
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Acknowledgments
We wish to express gratitude to the Service of Information Technology of the Université de Moncton Campus d'Edmundston and its director Jocelyn Nadeau, for hosting on their server, free of charge, our Web site and galleries of photos. This second gallery of photos was made possible with the financial help of Canadian Heritage through the program Canadian Culture on Line, the National Archives of Canada, the Canadian Council of Archives (CCA) and the Canadian archives information network (CAIN). Some acknowledgments are addressed to the people and organization who have lent us some photos, to the employees for doing the scanning and installation of the exhibition into our Web site of the Archives of the Religious Hospitallers of Saint-Joseph in Saint-Basile. We wish to thank Kenneth Flemming, who translated the texts into English, and the reviser Sylvia Beaulieu for their diligent work.
The interest and encouraging words of Sr. Kathleen Landry, superior of the Hotel-Dieu in Saint-Basile community of religious hospitallers, were a constant support. It took a full year for two volunteer workers to bring the exhibition to an end. In fact, Sr. Annette Lajoie, assistant in these archives, described the photos in conformity to RAD (Rules for Archive Description of Documents). While directing the project, Sr. Bertille Beaulieu, person in charge of the RHSJ's Archives, did a lot of research, wrote the descriptions of the 502 photos, and also did some retouching and scanning of photos. For corrections or comments, do no hesitate to communicate with her using the e-mail of this site.
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© Bertille Beaulieu, 2004
