Rob, for Robert.
Very little is known about this other Robert Lowe, who grew up far from the Hollywood spotlight, in what was called an asylum at the time. “I was born in 1952 to unknown parents. It is written on paper that I was born in Montreal, but I don’t know it. I was sent from one side to the other, but I have no awareness of that. I had no family, no grandpa, no grandma.”
Then in 1958 there was a “grandma”, whose name he never knew, who looked after him at her home, who taught him at home. “I understood later that it wasn’t normal,” Robert tells me through screens. “In November 1959, I found her dead one morning in her bed. The police arrived, there was chaos.”
And Robert, at seven years old, found himself in the asylum, an “old farm house” in Vaudreuil-Soulanges where around a hundred people were locked up. “I was there, among the cries of all those people. There was a lady of about 40 years old, she was walking around naked. I went running, I went to hide in a room…”
He became an orphan of Duplessis. “They didn’t do tests at that time, they were the ones who chose the diagnosis. For me, it was mild impairment. It was to have federal money, you had to have money to keep these places running.”
He stayed there for a year until the place flooded in the spring, after which he was sent to another institution in Laval, which burned down a few months later. We have it pitched in another center where he was able to stay for five years, then, again, he was catapulted at the age of 14 to “Saint-André Est” where the director imposed iron discipline. “We were all dressed in green, it was a military system, we were doing drill, we made our beds with square corners. I still do that…”
There was a lot of violence, he was lucky to escape it.
When Robert recounts what he went through, the memories come rushing back, there are so many of them. He remembers the names of those who crossed his path, those – rather those – who extended their hand to him. Among the lot, “Miss Feiland” with whom he was placed in exchange for work of all kinds. “We spoke together, she saw that I was not deficient. She asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, I didn’t know. I said “surely spend my life inside, I don’t see anything else…” That’s all I knew.”
Miss Feiland spoke to the authorities to report that Robert was out of place, and the response was quick. “The general director of the eight pavilions in Quebec met me. She said to me “we took you in, we picked you up and you denounce us?” They locked him in his room for two weeks, then one day they ordered him to go out through the door of the side.
Miss Feiland was waiting for him with her Bentley.
Free for the first time
At 25, Robert was free for the first time in his life. He found a job in a “company that made trophies”, then at the restaurant Le Bordelais, “an institution” as a handyman. In 1978, somewhat by chance, volunteering at a summer camp, then at a mutual aid counter in Lachute. “I met a lot of people, I felt welcomed.”
But, more than anything, “I found the family I never had. I felt that I had a place in society, I had always had doubts.
It is enormous.
He worked in Bordeaux until his retirement in 2017, which did not prevent him from continuing to volunteer as a handyman at the summer camp, also at the Hay Boot, a collective country house from Dunham to which allows people who could not afford it to take a vacation.
At almost 72 years old, he is still a “full-time” volunteer, and he has no plans to slow down. “Those who ask me why I do this, I tell them that it prevents me from staying at home. And then I meet people, friends. I feel useful to society among ordinary people. I give without counting!”
He received three official recognitions for his dedication, the last in April, the Hommagevoluntaire-Québec prize.
Since 2010, he has also been involved with the organization ATD Fourth World, which helps the most deprived people to escape material poverty, among other things by organizing “popular universities” where “we share our knowledge”. Robert doesn’t miss a single one, and he is always ready to share his experiences, his experiences.
“I am proud of myself.”
Because there are other riches than money. “I don’t need a lot of equipment to live. I live in a small apartment, I have never had a car. What I like is meeting people.” Despite everything he has been through, his happiness is easy, contagious. “I always say: “There’s nothing too beautiful”, “Life is beautiful”!
I would say it differently, he knows how to draw beauty from it.
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