The magic of Christmas no longer holds any secrets for Raoul and Hélène Lebarbé, both centenarians and celebrating their 75e Christmas together this year. “It’s incredible,” says Raoul Lebarbé, moved.
“We are not the only ones who are 100 years old! Exclaims Raoul Lebarbé, whom we met in his apartment in Griffintown. “I never thought I would live to be 100 years old, it’s not bad, anyway,” explains Raoul, who became a hundred on October 30.
The couple have always loved celebrating Christmas, surrounded by their whole family, two children, four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. “At the time, there were large tables with cousins, children, grandchildren, uncles and aunts. Obviously, this year, Christmas, it will be very calm, just like the 1er January ”, underlines Françoise Lebarbé, 73, daughter of the couple.
In the family, we live quite old as a rule. But 100 years, it’s extraordinary, I am amazed!
Françoise Lebarbé
“What is incredible is that not only am I a hundred years old, but I am still married to the same woman! »Exclaims Raoul Lebarbé. The couple will celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary next March. “I met my wife during World War II, in France, in Brittany, where we are both from. He remembers that very difficult period, when he lived with his widowed mother, who was raising her five children on her own.
“We got married on March 22, 1947. A town guy who married a country girl, that was not done in France at the time. Our daughter was born a year later, in 1948. ”He evokes post-war France, when he wanted to start a business in Carhaix, his hometown in Finistère, he the son of a hardware store. But it was not the right time in this rebuilding France.
On the way to Canada
One day his mother said to him: “We are going to Canada, are you coming with us? “” We arrived on the 1er April 1951 in Montreal after a week aboard the Georgic Transatlantic, says Raoul Lebarbé. Crossing the Atlantic was not easy. There were women and children on one side, men on the other. In this boat there was, in addition to my wife and my daughter, my mother, my brother and my sister. ”
The boat took them to Halifax, where they took a train to Montreal station. “There were a lot of immigrants in the boat, especially Britons like us, with big trunks. ”
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE LEBARBÉ FAMILY
Wedding photo of Raoul and Hélène Lebarbé, March 22, 1947
A new life began for the young couple and their 3-year-old daughter. In a few days, he found accommodation, then a job. The little family moved to Sorel for a few months where they experienced the shock of their first Quebec winter. The three eventually returned to Montreal where they settled. The couple went on to have a second child, a son born in 1956, and bought a house. “Montreal was a big village when we arrived. There was the tram. It was great. I remember the atmosphere on Sainte-Catherine Street. ”
HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT PHOTO, THE PRESS
Raoul Lebarbé, in his apartment in the Griffintown district
Raoul and Hélène Lebarbé bought their first house on Dorchester Boulevard. “We paid $ 22,000 for her! A house in Westmount. We lived in the basement and we rented weekly rooms on both floors, that’s how it all began, ”he summarizes.
It worked well, then we moved to Sherbrooke Street at the corner of Berri to do the same thing. We rented rooms, in big houses, it was a small hotel.
Raoul Lebarbé
What is he most proud of in his life? “For being my own boss. I liked it. There was this feeling of freedom, it was in my eyes an accomplishment. We worked a lot, but going into business meant taking risks that were worth it. We got into the hotel business when we didn’t know anything about it! I tell myself that we had a good life, we worked hard. But for me who did not have a diploma, who came from Brittany, and my wife who was brought up on a Breton farm, we say to ourselves that we have come a long way. So far and up to our 100e birthday. It makes me happy to be 100 years old after all. ”