July 19, 2002 Life on the Alsace Road in Nipissing Township

Some houses on the Alsace Road have gone back to nature. Doug Mackey photo.

Last week I wrote about the St. John’s Roman Catholic church on the Alsace Road. When I wrote it I was reminded of the Alsace Road stories told to me by Fran Young of Powassan, who was the mailman on the road for 42 years (1943-85). I mentioned Fran in an article I wrote on rural mail here, where I noted that he had written a history of his experiences as a mailman on the Alsace Road and elsewhere over the years (see www.pastforward.ca/heritage perspectives.ca, article #25). I recently reread his book and asked him to travel the road with me so I could share a few of his experiences here.

As we drove he told me that he was born in 1918 on the Alsace Road, where he went to school and worked at various jobs, mostly in the lumber business. He married Maybelle Keall, who also lived on the Alsace Road, in 1940. After a brief period in the army he returned and continued to work in the lumber business until fate intervened. He was offered a job for two months finishing a mail contract on RR#2 Powassan, mostly on the Alsace Road between Powassan and Commanda. He had walked seven miles to the St. John’s church mentioned last week for years every Sunday, and knew the road like the back of his hand.

The old Roman Catholic Separate School on the Alsace Road, now a private home. Note the school bell tower and the circular school designation on the front.

He bid on the route and continued to work on it for forty two years. As we traveled the thirty km road, he told me that he had lived in the Storie settlement, a small enclave along the road where many Storie descendants still live today. A right turn on the Storie Road leads to the Storie Mini mart and to Nipissing Village. His father Albert and mother Rose (Busch) and his grandparents lived in the area, having originally come from Alsace Lorraine in a time of crisis there along with many other families. Many of the descendants of many of these original longstanding settler families still remain today, although there have been many changes in the last decades. Many homes and farms are gone back to nature, but others have been rebuilt and improved and are beautiful homes today. We stopped to visit with Gord Morris, who restored one of the original homes, so Fran could renew acquaintances with a former customer.

We covered the 30 km trip to Commanda in an hour and a half, stopping to look at various locations, take photographs, and talk to people along the way. We had a brief visit with retired teacher Pat Haufe, who was walking home from his dad’s farm nearby. The Alsace is a wide wandering road, with only a few occasional houses except in cottage country on Ruth Lake to the south and Wolf Lake to the north. The road is paved for about 10 km to Storie, and wide and well-kept beyond. The road is accessed by heading west out of Powassan on highway 534, and turning left at the Alsace Road sign 4.5 km out. Head straight south a couple of km on the Nipissing-South Himsworth Boundary Road, and turn right and head past the hydro pond on the South River.

There is no question that Fran thoroughly enjoyed the work and the people during his many years on the mail route, six days a week for most of those years. Besides delivering the mail, he delivered goods for merchants in Powassan and taxied people back and forth when space allowed. He carried veal calves, pigs, and turkeys to the Ellis butcher shop in Powassan and cream cans from dairy farms to the train. He recalled a day when he picked up a calf and a crate of twelve dozen eggs, the latter of which he left on the roof of his truck by mistake because he was in a hurry. When he stopped the vehicle, the eggs flew off. When he delivered them to the Toswell store in Powassan there were only two broken eggs. On another occasion a lady who lived alone was going away for a month and dumped sixteen cats on Fran, asking him to find a home for them. He did by leaving the back of his truck open, only to find the lady with the sixteen cats returned to her verandah when he resumed delivering her mail a month later.

On another occasion, he had two passengers in his truck when a man flagged him down for a ride saying he was "real sick." Fran already had two passengers so reluctantly let him sit in the back of the truck. When he got to town he let the man off, where he took a few steps and died on the street. Fran used to carry urgent messages back and forth for people before phones arrived, and after for those who did not have them. He often carried loads of baby chicks, bees and fruit trees, which used to be mailed in those days. He delivered thousands of copies of the Family Herald, the Family Advocate, the Simpson’s and Eaton’s catalogues and the annual Fall Almanac each year. As we passed one house he recalled a man needing a part for his litter carrier from Toronto, which Fran ordered by phone in Powassan later that day. He then picked it up the next morning and delivered it to the man on his mail route later that day, all of which took less than 24 hours.

At another mailbox he told the story of hearing a shot one day, and asked the customer what it was. He was told that the man’s horse had crowded him in a stall and that he had shot it. On another occasion he was given nine ducks by a man who was fed up with "the dirty old things." He regularly cut the head of a couple of chickens for a lady who couldn’t do it, and occasionally got one in return.

Former Alsace Road mailman Fran Young (L) visiting with former customer Gord Morris at Gord’s restored property on the Alsace Road.

Fran used horses for several years until he got a truck. Since the road was only ploughed halfway, he left the horses at his parent’s place where he would stop for a coffee, change to the horses, and complete the route. According to his autobiography he had, over the years, three horses, a buggy, a cutter, three used cars, one used truck and sixteen new trucks. In the early days, on occasion, he drove without a windshield or decent brakes for several days until he could afford the repairs. His horses stopped automatically at every mailbox, even when he didn’t have any mail for them.

This brief column cannot begin to touch on the hundreds of stories in his hundred-page book, or those told to me as we traveled the route. Some I couldn’t repeat here anyway. I will mention some of his experience with Miss Annie K. Spetz, and elderly recluse who lived near the St. John’s church, who he and others admired but who was eccentric to say the least. She was the lady with the cats mentioned above. She would complain if Fran put any Conservative literature in her mailbox at election time and often wrote letters to the postmaster, which usually got "lost" along the way, to complain about some concern with the mail. Fran recalled how Annie used to argue with her partner responsible for flowers at the St. John’s Church that the water from her house was better than the water from her partner’s house for the flowers. She commented that one priest was "only interested in baseball" and created quite a stir when she got lost in the bush for several days while on a walk late in her life.

Fran worked at a wide variety of interesting jobs beside his mail route and had a long career as a Municipal councillor and Reeve, along with many years in the Lion’s and Legion. His wife Maybelle was similarly active and worked for many years in the post office. At age 84 he and his wife of 62 years enjoy their six children and their grandchildren and their life on Young St. in Powassan.

The Alsace Road is a nice drive on a sunny afternoon, with many stops along the way where people have things for sale. The Commanda Museum at the end of the trip is always a treat. You can drive from there on highway 552 to Trout Creek and get back on highway 11. Have a safe trip.