In the fire, many Rimouskois help each other to try to save their house or, by spite, furniture and personal effects.
The exemplary contribution of students from the Rimouski seminar, scattered in the city center to help citizens, has been quoted several times. The young Gilles Vigneault is also the group and he gives his testimony to the newspaper Catholic actionwhich is on the ground to question, at random, victims of the claim.
We noticed the fire immediately after supper, Saturday evening […]. I went out with a long-shot to see where the fire came from, but as it was quite difficult to see it from the courtyard, I went up with others on the roof of the seminar. A hundred students followed us on the roof. We then recited the rosary. At that time, there was only the mill and two or three houses in flames. We would never have believed at that time that the fire could have surrendered to the seminar. But the fire spread with such violence that the 32 finishing decided to help people fight the fire in the city. Vers 9 H, all the students of the great hall had followed the example of the graduates and worked with ardor to save the victims of victims and their properties. I witnessed many heroism acts. Many people owe life to the dedication of students in the small seminar. Some did not want to get out of their houses even if the fire already surrounded them on all sides. They had to be taken out almost forcibly.
– Gilles Vigneault, in an interview given to Catholic actiona May 1950
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For her part, the Rimouskoise Thérèse Gendreau, who was nine years old at the time, said that her father had a house and a trade in the place where the tourist office is now in the city center. This is the last house to have burned.
She was then a boarder at the Ursulines, Couvent who became the University of Quebec in Rimouski in 1969. They had seated us on the edges of the window [alors que le feu faisait rage]and we saw that it was not beautiful.
When her parents went to see her at the boarding school, she remembers having heard her mother say that they had lost everything, until the last toothbrush.
« My father had very, very black hair, and when he came to see me, he had white hair, because of the shock … overnight, he bleached. In the space of 24 hours! It marked me. »
Ms. Gendreau, who now lives in residence in Quebec, also recalls all the solidarity of the community during and after the fire.
As the event goes around the world by newspapers, this momentum of mutual aid is felt from all sides. The victims, if insured, are generally covered only with a low percentage of the value of their goods.
Donations in money, but also in clothing and equipment, have flocked to the country, but also from the United States, Great Britain and even the Pope, who himself sent $ 10,000 for the victims.
A cathedral that feeds legend
The fire, which was not completely off at the end of the day of May 8, stopped net at the cathedral.
Many people of the time marvel at this symbol of divine omnipotence, while the building probably served as a rampart, protecting the eastern part of the city center.
People still need to hang on, build an imagination that allows you to project themselves and find a form of reconciliation with the event
observes the historian Maude Flamand-Hubert.
However, the efforts were great to preserve the cathedral, threatened by the blaze several times. Already in the middle of the night, stakes stayed in the bell tower and the fire spread to the nests of birds there. Men climbed in the bell tower and we also sprinkle from the outside
says Maude Flemand-Hubert.
The crew of a ship, Jean-Brillant, is also for many in the rescue of the cathedral. Learning that Rimouski was on fire, the sailors went up the river and mobilized to lend a hand to citizens and firefighters, notably by providing fire extinguishers, lights and cables.
The violent winds would have subsequently calmed down, reducing the risks of propagation of the flames.
Not just heroes
In return for the immense solidarity deployed during and after the disaster, Rimouski was entitled to his share of looters.
In the hours following the fire, the curious flocked to the city, even obstructing the road links still accessible. The judicial archives, as noted by the coordinator of the Rimouskois Center of Library and National Archives of Quebec (BANQ), Guillaume Marsan, show that many visitors were arrested and then sentenced for theft.
The most striking event remains the looting of a beer warehouse, reported in the newspapers of the time.
Municipal manager Léopold Caron […] said that looting occurred at the height of the disastrous fire on Sunday morning. A beer warehouse, belonging to Mr. Charles Théberge and containing 33,000 bottles of beer, was robbed on Sunday. A grocery store has also been pillaged before the eyes of its owners
we publish in particular in The Nouvelliste de Trois-Rivières, May 9, 1950.
Curiously, several offenders come from Matania and were tried for stolen clothes in shops in the city center. Others have stolen furniture to residents or have been taken to wander in the rubble.
Despite what we are trying to portray at the time, the looters did not only come from outside the city. Other men living close to what remained of the Moulin des Price Brothers have notably been arrested for stealing hundreds of copper books on the scene.
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