Low Down Articles
In the Hills
Article 5 of 18
This article first appeared in the "In the Hills" column in the August 27, 2008 issue of the The Low Down to Hull and Back News.
Reprinted with permission. Search complete list of Low Down Articles.
o o o
Henry Trudeau, Chelsea's Backhoe King
by Catherine Joyce
We've all seen him driving down Scott Road in his bright yellow backhoe. At 82 Henry Trudeau is still working at what he loves best - reshaping the landscape from dawn to dusk witb the care and commitment few younger operators can match.
Born, raised, and still living in the heart of Old Chelsea, Henry is the 8th of twelve children. What is now Chelsea's Pub used to be the Trudeau family home Henry's father bought it in 1920 from the original owners, the Grimes, and later sold it to his eldest son, Harold, in the 1960s before the Dompierres took it over.
As a boy, Henry initially went to school just a few doors from home - where the MRC building is now. Four nuns lived upstairs, each earning $75 a month to teach, while a live-in cook received no salary at all. "We guys used to make fun of the teachers, saying "Old Crow is coming now!' but the girls were more sensible."
Then the nuns were let go. New teachers were hired and paid twice as much. For the later grades students had to go down over the tracks to the Protestant school on Mill Road. Henry joined his friends Scotty and Steve Dunn and Mel MacAdam to make their own fun on the way to school.
All his life Henry has been a dedicated worker. While still a teenager, he delivered meat for Boland's Butchery, showing up at the Tenaga clubhouse to take orders on Wednesday nights when the community gathered for baseball and lawn bowling, and then returning on Friday nights for delivery door to door. "For a few years I was too young to have a license but I drove the truck anyway." By 20 he was delivering groceries all the way to Rockcllife in Ottawa, from 9 till 11 p.m. on Friday nights.
For a number of years Henry also did the Chelsea mail run, picking up the mail at Donovan's (now the Parkway General Store/Epicerie General du Parc) and sorting it at the main post office in Hull. He eventually became the Chelsea postmaster at Donovan's from the age of 25 to 30; the post office was open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day of the week. For a while Henry worked at the Chelsea Hydro Plant but the constantly changing shift hours didn't suit him. "I told the foreman that I didn't like taking Hydro's money if I wasn't sure I was going to stay, and he told me that no one had ever said that to him before."
Fishing summers out west in BC during the salmon runs and working construction back home kept Henry on the run. For fifteen years he also drove the Chelsea school bus. "Sometimes the bus wouldn't start in the winter and Leo Hendrick would bring out his horse and pull us down the road until it did - you had to jump back on the bus real quick to keep it going." In later years he received The Unsung Hero Award of Merit from Chelsea School.
By the late 1970s Henry was driving backhoe, working for ten years for the NCC creating roads and trails. He had found his cailing. He soon bought his own machine. To this day, you can see him driving down the road to help his neighbours, often working ten hours at a stretch with unflagging artistry and precision until the job is done.
"I don't believe in retirement. What would I do - sit around and talk about my neighbours? I'm lucky, I love to work. The world was different back then. People were more willing to help because we were all in the same boat. Nobody had much money but they would give you lunch or a bed. It was a way of life, working and helping each other out, or you'd starve."