| Notes |
- According to his WWI Draft Registration, Edouard was tall with a mediumbuild, blue eyes, and brown hair. He was also noted to have lost part of 3 fingers on his left hand.
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In 1940, Edouard reported that he had earned $1250 in 1939.
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Kennebec Journal (ME) -- 28 Mar 1973
EDOUARD M. ARBOUR
Augusta -- Edouard M. Arbour, 83, died Tuesday morning at his home, 28 Water St., after a long illness. He was born in Joliette, PQ, 2 April 1889, the son of Michel and Adelaide Lasalle Arbour. Mr. Arbour was a communicant of St Augustine Catholic Church. A lifelong resident of Augusta, he had been employed by Bates Manufacturing Company, Edwards Division, for 52 years in the carding department prior to his retirement in 1961. He was a member of St John the Baptist Union of America Conseil Laval. Survivors include four sons, Edouard D. Arbour, Armand E. Arbour, Richard Arbour, and Roger R. Arbour, all of Augusta; a daughter, Miss Juliette Arbour of Augusta; two brothers, Rosaire and Anselme Arbour, both of Augusta; a sister, Mrs. Genaro (Marguerite) Porcello of Medford, MA; nine grandchildren; six great-grandchildren; also several nieces, nephews, and cousins. A Mass of the Resurrection will be sung Thursday morning at 10 at St Augustine Catholic Church. Burial will be in St AugustineCemetery.
ARBOUR, Edouard M. -- Friends may call at the Plummer Funeral Home Inc,16 Pleasant St., Augusta, today from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 pm. A Mass of the Resurrection will be sung Thursday morning at 10 at StAugustine Catholic Church.
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Kennebec Journal (Augusta, ME) -- Monday 21 Feb 2011 -- Keith Edwards
AUGUSTA'S MANUFACTURING LEGACY -- Group Working to Turn Remaining Building Into Museum
Augusta -- For more than 100 years, workers toiled inside the massive brick Edwards Mill complex before it was destroyed by a spectacular blaze in 1989. {Photos} {Jan Michaud, left, SANDY ARBOUR, andMaurice Pelletier examine early 20th century photos of mill workers Tuesday at Michaud's Augusta home. The group wants to convert the former electrical distribution building at Edwards Mill complex, located at Mill Park in Augusta, into a museum for mill history.} {The former electrical distribution building for the Edwards Mill complex at Mill Park in Augusta. A group is proposing to utilize thestructure for a museum.} Now, a small group made up primarily of descendants of those workers are working to make sure the memories and stories aren't buried with the charred ashes ofthe riverside former mill. "Manufacturing in Augusta -- I don't want it to be lost for our children" said Jan Michaud, president of Friends for a Heritage Center at Mill Park. "This is the workforce that was thebackbone of the city." At its peak the Edwards Mill work force numbered1,300 people -- many of them Franco-Americans and other immigrants whocame to America, and Augusta, to work. They made cotton cloth productsfor a thriving company -- and lives for themselves and their families.Now a core group of 10 local residents are raising funds and interest in turning the only still-standing Edwards Mill building -- a two-story, 1,800-square-foot brick building on a small hill overlooking the formermill -- into a museum. The museum would seek to honor and recall thecity's thousands of manufacturing workers, starting with the many who toiled at Edwards, but later expanding, Michaud said, to include paper mill and other manufacturing workers from the city's past. Members of Friends for a Heritage Center at Mill Park have been laying the foundation for the museum for three years, interviewing, photographing and recording video and audio of 31 former mill workers, documenting their stories and memories. "These folks were reluctant at first," Michaud, whosegrandfather worked at the mill, said of the mill workers they've interviewed. "They'd say, 'Oh, you don't want to talk to me, I don't have anything interesting to say.' We said, 'Wejust want your memories. What was it like? How did work affect your family?' And, inevitably, they'd open up. "Once they started to talk, they couldn't stop." The former cotton mill at 1 Water St. frames one side of the city's downtown area. Employment at the mill sometimes peaked at as many as 2,000 workers. Thecity owns the building, which is locatedin the Capital Riverfront Improvement District -- an area created in 1999 as a joint venture between the city and the state to emphasize and protect the river. As such, organizers, who are incorporated as a nonprofit group, will need both the city and Capital Riverfront Improvement District board to sign off on the project. City Councilor Patrick Paradis, a member of the district's board, said the City Council and district board have both spoken favorably about the proposal. "We want to see that building go from being an unused building to a wonderful museum to all the people who worked there," said Paradis, whose father workedatthe mill for 35 years, and whois also of French ancestry. "This history is going away -- every week,someone who worked there is passing away. We wantto capture their history." Jan Michaud's husband, Victor Michaud, whose grandfather and great-grandfather worked at the mill, said the building they're eyeing for a museum was deemed structurally sound in a 2002 assesment. But it was estimated at the time that it would take about $1.5 million to restore the building and convert it into a museum. Maurice "Moe" Pelletier, vice president of the group whose father-in-law worked at Edwards and whose father worked at what later becomethe Statler paper mill in Augusta, said a major next step is to have a new assement done so the group can form a business plan. In addition to photos, the Friends for a HeritageCenter at Mill Park has cloth products made at the mill, tools and a huge logbook from the 1930s listing each worker, their pay and how much they paid in rent to live in numerous company-owned homes surrounding the mill. "I just found my grandfather's, he was in the card room," saidSandy Arbour as she looked through the logbook recently. "Lookat all these French names... Amazing." University of Maine at Augusta architecturestudents have already come up with different designs for turning the building, currently used by the city for storage,into a showplace. A fundraiser for the project is planned for Friday at Le Club Calumet, featuring comedian Louis Philippe as "FatherFrenchie," and musician TinaCharest. The group has an online presence on Facebook as well. It's http://heritagecenteratmillpark.blogspot.com. Jan Michaud, a former elementary school principal, said they'd like to have the buildingrestored and museum up and running within five years. She said they'd also like to include a small cafe in the building,as a place for people to gather and also to help pay for the costs of maintaining and running the museum. "We're hoping we can make somethinghappen for the community," she said. "It's an awesome spot for tourists to come and start their walk-through of the city here, go downtown, go over to Fort Western. "It's a dream, and we're hoping to make it a reality."
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1889 - 1973 (83 ans)
