This book is about the memories of Edmund and Eleanor Dery, over a span of ninety years, beginning in 1924-26. It begins with the Dery and Robichaud ancestries, dating from the 1630s, emigrating from France and settling in Three Rivers, Quebec, Canada, for the Derys, and Nova Scotia, for the Robichauds. It tells about the California Gold Rush of 1848 -1855, the expulsion of the Acadians by the British 1755-1764, as written in Longfellow’s “Evangeline”, the Mi’kmaq Indians of Canada, and the movement of the Robichaud family to Shippigan Island, New Brunswick, Canada. Aldege Dery married Leonie (Robichaud) and moved from Athol, MA, to New Britain, CT, and from there to New Hartford, CT working for a branch of the Landers, Frary, and Clark Appliance Company.
The prohibition of alcoholic beverages from 1920 to 1933 came along, followed by the Great Depression of the 1930-40s with its fall of world economies. During this period we find Franklin D Roosevelt enacting the New Deal policies of relief, recovery, and reform. He introduced the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) to aid the creation of jobs.
World War Two lasted from 1939 to 1945, with all the great Countries forming two opposing military alliances, the Axis, under Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy, and later, Hiro Hito in Japan. And the Allies, with Great Britain, and later the US after Japan bombed the ships at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Germany tried to exterminate the Jews through the Holocaust when six million Jews were killed in concentration camps. Germany conquered most of the European countries. The Allies stormed the Normandy Beach, France, and went on to crush Italy and Germany, meeting the Soviet Union at Berlin, for its unconditional surrender.
After Ellie and I graduated from High School, I volunteered to enter the Army Specialized Training Program for a year at Massachusetts State College, Amherst, MA. From there I was inducted into the Army Air Force at Fort Devens, MA,and was sent to Boot Camp in Wichita Falls, TX. I failed the Air Force flight tests due to nervousness, and was assigned to the German Occupation Force in Germany, as an airplane mechanic, and then as an athletic instructor.
Ellie’s French heritage is reviewed with the Zele family on her mother Melina’s side (one of eleven children) and her father, Gustave Maigret coming through Ellis Island, and settling in Torrington, CT. We had met at a wild New Year’s Eve part, courted for 6 months going to barn round and square dances, and proposed six months later at a small three room cottage with wood stove, water pump, and an out-house where she said yes, and we were married in June of 1951. I started working for the Dery Tool & Die Company, and ten years later went to work for the Torrington Needle and Bearing Company as a Project Engineer, and General Foreman., while Ellie worked at the branch of the American Brass Company, Torrington, CT and later as a Branch Manager for the Simsbury Bank and Trust, which later became a branch of the Bank of America.
Next came the Cold War Era between the US and the Soviet Union. It was a sustained state of political and military tension between powers in the Western Bloc, with the US and NATO allies, and the powers in the Eastern Bloc with the Soviet Union and its allies in the Warsaw Pact. Each superpower armed heavily in preparation of an all-out nuclear World War III, with a doctrine of mutually assured destruction as a deterrent. The US began a strategy of global containment to challenge the growing communist power of the Soviet Union.
Both sides competed in the technological Space Race, with the Soviets launching the first manned rocket, Sputnik, satellite to circumnavigate the globe, and the Space station, while the US sent a manned rocket to the Moon and back.
In 1945, by agreement with the US, the Soviet Union occupied Korea north of the 38th parallel. US forces subsequently occupied the South. The conflict escalated into open warfare when North Korean forces, supported by the Soviets and China, invaded South Korea. An amphibious U.N. counter-offensive was launched forcing back the North attackers all the way back to the Yalu River at the Korea-China border, with China now entering the war, forcing the U>N>command back. The war ended in 1953 when an armistice was signed and an agreement was established creating the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) border between the North and South Koreas.
The Vietnam War was fought between North Vietnam, supported by the Soviet Union and China and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the US, as a means to prevent a communist takeover by the North. The capture of Saigon at the hands of the North Vietnamese Army ended the war in 1975.
President Jack Kennedy was assassinated by lee Harvey Oswald in 1963. Lee Oswald was later killed by Jack Ruby before he could stand trial. The president’s brother Bobby Kennedy was also assassinated in 1968, while he was campaigning for the presidency, by Sirhan Sirhan, who is serving a life sentence.
The goal of the African-American Civil Rights Movement in 1954 to 1968 was to end racial segregation and discrimination against black Americans and enforce constitutional voting rights to them. Civil resistance was led by Martin Luther King Jr. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned discrimination.
The Torrington company was sold and I was given an early retirement in 1981, but decided to study and begin a Dery Book-keeping, Accounting and Tax Preparation Business that lasted for twenty five years. Ellie and I moved to Fort Mill, SC in 2007.
With the entry of the Iraq War, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and our entry in the Afghanistan War. It’s no wonder we had a financial crisis in 2007-08.
We end our memories with a review of the many lifetime changes in inventions in science and technology.