They say that young people these days can expect to have many careers in their lifetime and that learning, for them, will be life-long.

Norman Nicholson, born 1850 in Brompton Gore, Eastern Townships, Quebec had a rich and varied -and stressful- life on the job. Jobs were hard to come by in the ET at that time. That's why so many citizens moved away, some going to work in Ford's factories.

In the 1870's Norman performed odd jobs, even sold turkeys, although his diaries from the early part of that decade indicate he was obsessed more with girls than with work. Click for an essay about him.  By the end of the decade he had settled down and started a bark business. You see, the hemlock bark industry was big in the Eastern Townships at the time.    Hemlock bark was used in the tanning industry.        Norman kept meticulous records and they show that the business was doing well in the  1890's. 

Norman got a partner, at one time, Tom Newell. Later on, when the bark industry collapsed, Newell wisely  moved to Saskatchewan. He even took in Norman's son, Herb, in 1910 when he, too, moved out west. Norman stayed put in the ET and just took on more jobs.

In 1896 Norman also worked as a collector for one Dr. Stewart of Montreal.
That same year Norman he applied and got the job as Inspector in charge of federal installations in Richmond, but not before quibbling over salary , He  oversaw the building of the new post office.  He continued to work in lumber, but turned to pulpwood, signing a contract with the Burgess Sulphite Company in 1899. By 1907, his careers were going nowhere. Just as his bank account bottomed out with about 33 dollars in it, Norman got a job as inspector the Canadian Transcontinental Railway with the help of MP E W Tobin (and the story on this website begins). I have his contract for the second stint he had on the railway in 1911. He was paid 100.00. Norman went awol from the railroad in 1910 because of family troubles-- read all about it in the letters. Tobin was instrumental in getting him a second chance.  The railroad job was no picnic, however. I also have a page of  1911 Montreal stock market quotes. Norman may have been watching the market, but he was broke.  He should have borrowed and invested in the auto industry, but, like many people, he thought cars were a passing fad.

At the end of the 1912, with the dreaded Tories in office, Norman was let go from the railway and began a series of jobs: working for E. W. Tobin's mill in Brompton in 1914, traveling to  St. Justine de Newton, near Ontario border and St Rose on Montreal's north shore; working at the  La Loutre Dam in 1917; he had to register 'for national purposes' in 1918, despite being 68,  and in 1919 he worked again as Richmond Town inspector,  on bridge and road projects. He worked pretty well up until his death in June, 1922. He also did a lot of charity work, secret stuff with the Masons and more public activities, keeping accounts for Chalmer's Church and also acting as executor on the  Wales Estate. Mr. Wales was the town tycoon who, in 1917,  bequeathed a lot of money for an old age home that still stands today. He came a callin' in 1910 or so and took Margaret for a spin in his chauffeur driven car! And let's not forget that in 1889 Norman was active in the Donald Morrison Defense Effort. Donald Morrison was the Megantic Outlaw. Here's an outside link to a story about Norman's part in that legendary affair. And here's a link to a clipping from Montreal Witness the Nicholsons kept.

Esther Healy of the Richmond County Historical Society provided me, a while back, with an account of one of Norman's contemporaries, Henry Watters, who ended up a doctor. He too spent years wandering from job to job, so I get the impression Norman's life was typical. The small area farms couldn't sustain the large families these people had. Even today, the ET is pretty depressed economically, despite being beautiful and perfectly situated between Montreal and the US. Another Richmond native, an Irishman, moved to the States in 1902 and entered a burgeoning business called 'the motion picture industry." Mack Sennett, who put himself in the right place in the right time, went on to become a Hollywood legend.