Cape Breton's Magazine

With Ida Mauger of Cap La Ronde Edited from Her Conversations with Allan Kipp and with Cape Breton's Magazine, 1995 Ida Mauger enlarges our por? trait of the Jersey settlers in Cape Breton. We tend to think of the Jerseys as merchants • typically, as people who were here for seasonal trade. Most of us know them as running the fishing industry at Cheti? camp and (less well) as ship? owners and import/export merchants at Isle Madame. Ida Mauger Introduces us to the Jerseys as pioneers who got their hands dirty • farmer- fishermen who stayed year round, cultivated the land, and participated in community. It's from people like this that Ida descends. My full name was Ida Jane LeLacheur.... I was born on October 25th, 1898. My father's name was Peter Matthew LeLacheur. My father was born in Martinique, here on Isle Madame. My father's people were from Guernsey, but my mother's people were from Jersey. My mother's name was Victoria Ada Mauger; they called her Vicky. I went to school in Cap La Ronde, at one of the old schools. There's been two schools built there since I went. I went to school there when I was 6 years old. When I started school, I knew my ABC's, of course. The school was only about half a mile from where I lived. And we walked to school every morning. But in wintertime it was so cold. And we didn't have nice over? shoes then like they have now, we had rub? bers. And my mother used to pull stockings over our shoes and put the rubbers on, and we'd go to school like that. But our feet would be pretty cold when we'd get there. The grades were from the ABC's up to Grade 11. I took my Grade 11 at the school: I never went away to college. I got my Grade II and I went teaching. And I was too young, I wasn't 16 yet. (So) I had to get a permit from the Department of Education to allow me to teach those two years.... When I went to school for my Grade 11, the teacher that I had did not have her Grade 11. Her name was Lina Mauger, and she lat? er married a Macintosh. In fact, she was a cousin of mine, our next-door neighbour. She was a wonderful teacher. And she had so many pupils; she taught when there were lots of them. She'd take me to her home after school and teach me--oh, long hours after school, she would teach me. And that's how I took my Grade 11, from her. And she never got it herself, because she was sick both times when she'd have to write her exams. One time she had the mumps and the other time she had the mea? sles. But she knew her work perfectly. So she taught it to me. And I passed with flying colours. I didn't fail. I got my Grades 9, 10, and 11 from Lina Mauger. She's gone, they're both gone--but her daughter is living up in Ontario, and her son is living up in Nova Scotia some? where.... But if they read the magazine I want them to know that I think the world of their mother, and that she taught me after school at home. And it was because of her hard labour in teaching me that I got my grades and that I got along as well Cape Breton's MAGAZINE • Number Seventy-One Wreck Cove, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia BOC IHO Publications Mail Registration Number 3014