As I write Milk and Water, a play about Montreal in 1927, I am learning about my own family.
I am learning about Montreal History and I am learning about the part WATER played in the socio-economic history of Montreal. That is, the providing of fresh water to citizens and the removal of their waste.
There are many scholarly articles available on the subject, and I've read many of the era newspaper articles, but the clearest account I found, by happenstance, in the McGill Thesis Archives.
It was a thesis by Kathleen Lord, "Days and Nights: class, gender and society on Notre Dame Street in St. Henri, 1885-1905.
I downloaded it because I am interested in such topics, not thinking it would help me with this book, but perhaps with another book I am writing about the 1910 era.
Well, was I wrong. Lord explains in clear accessible language the part Montreal Water and Power, the private company, played in the development of the city. And she also explains the part that company plays in the the typhoid epidemics of 1904 and 1909.
My grandfather, Jules Crepeau, Director of City Services between 1921 and 1930, a time when Montreal was thriving, a great and important city in North America and the World, was fired by City Council (or forced to resign) over the purchase of Montreal Water a Power.
The new Mayor, Camillien Houde, wanted him out!
My grandfather negotiated a huge life pension and then, a few years later, he was run over by a city constable. He died the next year from complications, bone cancer from all the X Rays, probably.
My mother said the family fielded a lot of death threats, against her dad and her older brother, over the years. Yet, she believed his death to be a total accident. "The constable was very very sorry."
Houde decried the purchase (Lord calls it an expropriation) first in the National Assembly, where he wanted the 'criminals' who profited brought to justice, and later as Mayor of Montreal. (He was voted in largedly due to the perceived scandal over the purchase.)
And yet the purchase of Montreal Water and Power in 1927 was probably one of the most useful and necessary motions ever voted by Council. And instantly profitable. In the early 1930's, ousted Mayor Mederic Martin called for an inquiry into the purchase to clear his own name.
Water socialism, as Lord describes it, was the way to go for cities and one of the key reasons why other large cities in the world didn't have the water-borne health problems Montreal did back then.
There was an issue, however, over the timing of the purchase, but even then, my grandfather didn't have anything to do with that.. almost certainly. He didn't even attend the Council meeting where the motion to purchase was passed.
A handful of industrial elites profited handsomely, though, from a quick flip of the company in 1926. And all legally, it seems. Lorne Webster, Honorable Mr. Perron and an Allison and Beausoleuil shared a 4,000,000 profit.
So there you go.
And, yet, it seems to me, if Houde wanted to find an excuse to get rid of my grandfather, one was readily available....the Laurier Palace Business. Indeed, at the rowdy debate on Sept 30, 1930 City Council over whether or not to accept my grandfather's resignation, Houde 'randomly' tosses in a mention of the tragic theatre fire that had occurred a few years before. Just a spur of the moment whim? I doubt it. I'm sure Houde knew what he was doing. He was a savvy politician.
Hmm.
