(The following story by Linda Hersey appeared on the Moncton Times and Transcript website on July 8. Lawrence Soucoup is a retired member of former BLE Division 612 in Moncton, N.B.)
MONCTON — “(There used to be) cinder sidewalks,” recalls Jim (Lawrence) Soucoup of Moncton.
“There were steam engines and lots of coal ashes and the city would go out there and get those coal ashes and that’s what they’d use for sidewalks in the summertime along the street, was cinders.
“Not downtown maybe, but back up around Third and Fourth Street . . . it was to keep the grass down — and out where Centennial Park is today, we used to call that Natural Park. We used to dam the stream there to swim.”
Jim has plenty of memories of early Moncton as a lifelong resident. The son of Daniel and Emily (Doucet) Soucoup, Jim was the eldest of five boys. He remembers his childhood as being a “little on the rough side,” and there was no plumbing in the house at Scratch Gravel, not far from where the Moncton Coliseum is now. The family then moved to Fourth Street.
His father was laid off from CN during the Depression, and died at age 38.
Jim was just 17 at the time, and got employment setting type at the Transcript office. However, “itchy feet” saw him take a pick and shovel job with the city.
Jim was also in the non-active militia in his late teens, and in the summer of 1939 he went on active duty guarding a Pan American clipper docked at the Pointe-du-Chêne wharf, among other posts.
Upon his return, life changed drastically.
“I came home one day and Josie (Keith), who lived right back where I lived, on Fifth Street, came over and said ‘Jim am I still your girlfriend?’ because I hadn’t seen her for a couple of months.
“I said, ‘well yes I’d like you to be,’ and before two weeks were up, we were married. She was 16 and I was 18, and we ended up having nine children.”
“The oldest boy, Wayne, passed away in 1980, and there’s Kirk, Dianne, Lois, Barbara, Faye, Keith, Dale and Jim.”
There are also many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and one great-great grandchild.
When Josie was still doing the family laundry on a washboard, Jim promised her a better life. He delivered too, always working at home renovations and eventually purchasing a home on Birchmount Avenue.
The couple also travelled extensively later in life, including three exotic cruises. Sadly, he lost his beloved Josie almost two years ago, and he misses her greatly.
Jim went with the railroad in 1943, and retired on disability pension after 35 years following a heart attack. He was a locomotive engineer. A second heart attack resulted in successful by-pass surgery.
Very active, he plants a vegetable garden at his Cocagne River cottage, still drives, fishes, bowls, is a member of the CN Pensioners Association, the Royal Canadian Legion, and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers — and is very close to his family.
Robust and healthy, he credits aloe vera for dispensing with stiff fingers, and today doesn’t have an “ache or pain.”
Is Jim Soucoup feeling good at 87?
“Oh good heavens,” he says. “Yes!”