An indelible part of my memories of my mother, Elsie, is of her knitting while she rocked in her favorite chair. In her later years, she would often slip into her nap with her hands still knitting. Some times, she would discover after waking that she had skipped a stitch! 

She was well known wherever she lived for her kindness and generosity but especially for her knitting. She kept an ample stock of mittens, slippers and blankets for her family and her friends. She donated much of her knitting to organizations for fund-raisers and in her final days, she generously kept her nurses well-supplied with slippers, baby blankets, afghans and other lovely articles. Her generosity knew no bounds and to the very end, she was rewarded with fingers and hands that stayed nimble with no evidence of arthritis.

Although her knitting in her later years was for the pure enjoyment of doing something for her children and her friends, it was not always that way. During the early years of my youth, our hands, ears and feet would have frozen without her knitting. At that time, we were living in the small Acadian parish of Sainte Luce in Upper Frenchville, Maine on the St-John River which forms the international boundary between the United States and Canada. In those days, our village was better known by the name of our parish, Sainte Luce. Everyone spoke french and was either Acadian or French-Canadian. The people were accustomed to hard work, not much money and knew how to have fun and enjoy each other's company.

Although our family did have livestock that we raised only for the subsistence of our family, we did not raise any sheep. Mother's family, however, raised sheep both for meat and wool. Springtime was the busy and intense time of the year for sheep. This was the time for lambing when the young were born and this was also the time for shearing the wool so that the sheep would not be too warm in the summer. 

While my grandfather, 'Pépére' and his sons took care of the lambing process and the shearing, the rest of the work was 'women's work' which my grandmother, 'Mémére' did with the help of her daughters. Of course, the knowledge and skills for taking care of sheep had been passed on from generation to generation over several millenia going back to France and the ancient civilization. Very little changed in the process over that period of time. 

After the sheep had been shorn, the fleece would be washed several times to remove the dirt and some of the lanolin from the wool and to prepare the fleece for dyeing and the 'carding' process. After the fleece had been washed, it would be spread out to dry in the open-air. When dry, Mémére and her daughters would gather the fleece in bedsheets into large bundles and would carry them off to the local wool carding mill in the village. In Ste-Luce, the Corriveau family had an old mill where everyone brought their fleece for carding. 

Later, the families would return to pick up their carded wool which would be ready for spinning. I believe that the fleece that was going to be dyed, was dyed after taking it to the mill for carding. Mémére would prepare to dye the white yarn which typically was several days' work with a big laundry 'boiler' on the stove to boil the dye water and the wool.

I remember that my grandparents' sheep were mostly white with a few greys and one or two blacks and even some reddish-browns. The fleece for the different colors were kept separate because typically the grey, black and brown fleece was not dyed. In fact, most of our utility winter skating and work stockings and mittens were made from the grey wool and sometimes the brown. I can't remember what the black fleece was used for but I'm sure that it was used for something. 

After the wool was dyed and carded, Mémére would do all the spinning to transform all of the carded wool into balls of yarn. With her favorite chair and her spinning wheel situated by the front window, she would spin her yarn for days and weeks until all the carded wool was spun. From there, she would spend countless hours knitting mittens, stockings and other articles of clothing to keep her family warm during the long cold winters of northern Maine.