No one knows what it means. In fact no one knows if it is, or ever was, an actual word. Some think it might be a derivative from a French, Latin or Italian word. There is a headland near Argentia called Point Latine, but no one is sure how it got the name. Some old-timers claim that a foreign ship called Latine went aground there many years ago, hence the name Point Latine.
No one is even quite sure of the correct pronunciation. Today, some call it “La tine” with a French-flavoured accent, but older people, especially those from the area, pronounce it “Lat nee” with the emphasis on Lat. That's the way retired Christian Brother Francis Foran pronounces it and he ought to know. He grew up in the lighthouse on Point Latine.
Archival records of the Point Latine lighthouse are practically nonexistent. The lighthouse was bulldozed into the ground in 1942 to make way for the construction of the U.S. Military Base in Argentia. The only thing remaining is the headland itself. The American bulldozers even altered the configuration of the land surrounding the lighthouse by levelling some of the small hills during construction.
Built in 1906, the lighthouse was “kept” by the Foran family until the tractors moved in to destroy it. Frank (Francis) Foran, [sic] took over as lightkeeper in 1908, two years after the light was built. He died in 1926 but his wife Caroline stayed, literally, until the last minute. The “dozers” were on the property ready to plough the lighthouse, the residence and the barn into the ground when someone issued the command to “wait.” Caroline Foran was not quite ready to leave. Although she had her things packed and ready to go, the sixty-one-year old woman sat in her rocking chair, staring silently out the living room window.
Caroline Foran had much to think about that morning. For thirty-six years, the lightstation was the place where she raised a family and watched them grow until most of them left Newfoundland to find work in Canada and the United States. It was the place where, for a while, she was the lighthouse keeper, perhaps the only woman in Newfoundland in the mid-1900s to ever hold that position. It was the place from where she had buried her daughter Clara. It was also the place from where she had buried her second husband, Frank.
What would become of her, she wondered? What would she do? Where would she live? Would her women friends who always visited the lighthouse on Sunday to chat and take pictures still stay in touch? Would the nurses at the Argentia hospital still need their uniforms ironed and starched? If not, how would she make enough money to live on? As memories flowed like the ocean currents in front of her window, Caroline's tranquillity [sic] was broken when a family friend opened the door to quietly tell her it was time to leave. “Sitting there like that, looking out the window, she reminded me of Whistler's Mother,” Matt [sic] Lee said.
A few hours later, Caroline Foran's home along with the Point Latine lighthouse was razed to the ground. Within months, no one would have recognized the place where the light had proudly stood. The Americans had constructed an airplane runway that extended all the way to the edge of the lighthouse property.
Like the 477 [sic] other residents who had lost their homes during the construction of the Argentia base, life for Caroline Foran would never be the same. In his 1990 book, A Friendly Invasion, John N. Cardoulis quotes an unnamed U.S. naval historian who wrote about the upheaval caused by the Americans:
After the rumours became facts, it dawned on the people that they would have to be uprooted, their homes torn down and they would have to settle elsewhere. This movement would include the (Roman Catholic) church, priest's house, school and hall, and three cemeteries.
So then, began the trauma, the sorrow and frustration of moving from their homes to where they did not know.
Years later Caroline Foran's son Francis, reflecting on those years and events, wrote about his mother and her life of hardship:
Like many of the uprooted people from Argentia, mother was never again as contented as she had been in Point Latine.
His mother's contentment during her thirty-four years there is perhaps one of the reasons Brother Francis Foran has such pleasant memories of growing up on Point Latine. Brother Foran has written about some of those memories. Because Point Latine was situated in a community and not on a remote headland or isolated island, the young son of Frances [sic] Sr. and Caroline Foran had lots of friends other than family. He says people of all ages regularly visited the lighthouse. Boys often came to sail their boats in Duck Pond, a small pond located near the lighthouse. Young Francis had a sailboat made by Bernard Power from Argentia. “It was the envy of all the other boys,” he smiles. Sometimes his friends came just to talk and, according to Brother Foran, “to do a bit of boyish bragging.”
Brother Foran remembers one particular day in the early 1930s when three boys from Argentia came to visit. After running out of things to do and talk about, they decided to try something new. One of them figured that it was high time they all tried smoking; after all they were young men of ten or twelve years of age.
After deciding that the roof of the barn was a safe place for their big adventure, all four climbed to the top of the building, settling on the side facing away from the lighthouse residence. The ringleader produced a plug of tobacco and some brown paper. Being much too close to home to risk the consequences of getting caught at such a wicked deed, young Frances [sic] cleverly declined the invitation. That didn't deter his three friends though. Atop the Point Latine barn was all the security they needed. There were no worries about appropriate ventilation to conceal the evidence. The continuous Point Latine winds would take care of that. Soon, crudely rolled cigarettes were produced. With machismo resembling a John Wayne swagger, someone struck a match and lit up.
“The result was disastrous,” remembers the Christian Brother, laughing. “After taking a few puffs, two of the boys became extremely sick. One fellow slid off the roof and finished his first smoking escapade by falling over the fence below the barn roof.”
Brother Foran's memories of his early years on Point Latine are fond recollections of a simple but satisfying life. He remembers competitive but friendly games with his friends. He remembers a slide, probably a birthday gift, made for him by his brother Ronald. “It had one-piece runners, covered with pork-barrel hoops. With a little use, the metal runners became two shining strips, giving me the fastest slide in town.”
Francis Foran has many memories of Duck Pond, also called Frog Pond, although there were no frogs there. Besides racing their little sailboats in the pond, the boys spent many hours trying to catch juvenile trout known as “pricklies.” The fishing gears of choice were hairnets, usually supplied by their mothers. The hairnets were often tied to the ends of sticks and strung across the top of the water, much the same as commercial saltwater fishing gillnets. To eight and nine-year-old boys, two-inch pricklies were practically the same as eight-foot swordfish.
Duck Pond was a constant source of enlightenment as well as entertainment for the Foran children. Francis Foran remembers the pond providing his first glimpses of the wonder and beauty of nature, something he wrote about in later years in a collection of personal essays:
Sometimes, in winter, especially on stormy days, waves from the nearby ocean came crashing over the beach into the pond, increasing its size. In spring, the pond shrunk back to its original dimensions.
To the ducks and geese, the pond was paradise. It also supplied us the humour of watching a mother hen with a brood of little ducks. She would run up and down the shore while the baby ducks swam serenely around the pond.
When chickens or ducks were hatching, there was certain to be one that couldn't quite make it out of the egg. Mother always came to the rescue. The egg was brought into the house, a hole was pricked into the shell and the egg was wrapped in cloth. It was then placed in a container and laid on the back of the stove or in the oven with the door open. Within an hour, another baby chick or duck was waddling around.
We didn't need books to explain the beginnings of life.
The young Francis Foran had more than ducks to observe. Like many other lightkeepers, the Forans kept horses, sheep and a variety of other domestic animals. When lambs were born, there was sure to be one that needed special attention from Mrs. Foran. This little animal often became a “pet” lamb after frequently being taken inside the house and fed from a bottle.
Capturing adult sheep for shearing or slaughter was always a challenge. Francis Foran and his friends herded the animals to the beach where the designated sheep would be separated from the others by chasing it to a sandy area. On the beach, the animal never had a chance at freedom. With the ocean on one side and all four legs sinking several inches in sand, it was a matter of time before the sheep tired and became an easy capture. There was no need of a sheepdog on Point Latine.
Although their primary purpose was to work, horses were also a source of pleasure. Francis Foran remembers lying on the cart on a load of hay and holding the reins as a very special privilege for a young boy. It was such a privilege he wrote a little poem about it.
Frank Cleary drives a Motor Car
Foley drives the Train
Frank Foran drives a horse and Gig
But he gets there just the same
History in the Making
Some of Brother Francis Foran's essays recount humorous anecdotes surrounding historical events. When trains first started the Argentia run, hundreds of people from communities all along the rail line came out, eager to see the so-called iron monster. At the Villa Marie stop, a Mr. Foley, the engineer, asked one of the female bystanders what she thought of the big machine. Foley, his face black from coal-dust, was a little surprised when she replied “It's hell afloat and it's the divil drivin' it!”
Iron monsters or not, trains became commonplace as part of the rapidly changing Argentia and Point Latine townscapes when twelve thousand Americans set up quarters on the new Naval Base in the early 1940s.
Equally as common in those days were warships. A scene from August 11, 1941 is still indelibly etched in Brother Foran's memory. Around eight o'clock that evening the sun was disappearing into the ocean just off Red Island, a large wooded island about five miles west of Argentia. Sitting on the hill overlooking the bay, Francis Foran knew something special was going on when he saw two large battleships accompanied by seventeen destroyers slip past Point Latine, heading into shimmering blue waters in the Placentia Bay sunset. Later Brother Foran wrote:
I read about Churchill and Roosevelt meeting somewhere in the Atlantic. When I saw the picture of the Arkansas and Prince of Wales, (and Augusta ) at anchor in front of the Issacs [sic], I made the connection.
This armada was certainly worth a picture but base security didn't encourage the use of cameras. Actually, a camera wasn't necessary - it was a sight never to be forgotten.
Francis knew there was something special about that armada, but at the time he had no idea of the significance of what he was observing. He was watching the convoy of British and U.S. navy [sic] ships carrying American President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and England's Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, along with the Chiefs of Staff and naval and military commanders from both countries. Roosevelt and Churchill sat in conference for the next three days. The Atlantic Conference was the forerunner to the signing [sic] of the Atlantic Charter, bringing the United States into World War II [sic] as an ally of Britain. The Charter [sic] was signed [sic] on August 14 [sic] on one of the warships just a short distance offshore from the Point Latine lighthouse [sic].
There was a good reason the waters just off Argentia were chosen for the signing [sic] of the Charter. Churchill, desperate for navy destroyers in the battle against Germany, turned to the United States for assistance. Following months of negotiations, the U.S. agreed to give Britain fifty used destroyers in return for the right to lease land in various parts of the British Empire on which the U.S. could build military bases. Britain accepted the deal and offered the United States the right to lease land for a period of ninety-nine years in both Newfoundland and Bermuda.
Although the official agreement between the two governments, commonly referred to as the “destroyers-for-bases” deal, was not signed until March 27, 1941, Argentia was long-favoured by the Americans. Jutting out into the northwest Atlantic Ocean on the closest landmass to Europe, Argentia's year-round ice-free harbour had already been selected by the Americans in the fall of 1940 as the ideal site for a military base. By the end of December 1940, construction of the base had already started. Because of its excellent location, Argentia was quickly chosen to be one of the key bases for the Allied Forces in the North Atlantic during World War II. The huge U.S. military base that was subsequently established there was the most expensive of the American overseas bases built during the war. Costing over $45,000,000, it consisted of a Naval Operating Base and a Naval Air Station with three runways on the north side of Argentia Harbour. A U.S. Army Base, known as Fort McAndrew, was constructed on the south side of the harbour. The Naval Operating Base and Air Station served throughout World War II as a base for both United States and Allied forces. Following the war, the base continued to operate, but, on a constantly declining scale. In 1974 the Air Station was abandoned, and in 1975 the Naval Station was closed.
The Sea That Shook the Light
Twelve years before the Atlantic Charter was signed [sic], a very young Francis Foran was having supper with his mother and family at the lighthouse residence when something strange happened. It was Monday, November 18, 1929. Like every other Monday evening, it was “hash” night at the lighthouse. In the custom of many other Newfoundland women, Caroline Foran always made hash on Monday from Sunday dinner leftovers. Just as they sat down to supper, Mrs. Foran sensed that something was different that evening. Getting up from the supper table, she looked out the kitchen window, searching for some clue as to why she felt a strange unexplainable sensation that something was about to happen. Unable to sit down until her curiosity was satisfied, she went into her bedroom to take a look across the waters of Placentia Bay. There was nothing out of the ordinary to be seen, yet Caroline had an uneasy, eerie feeling that something was wrong. Before she turned to go back to the kitchen, the house began to tremble.
Back at the kitchen table, Francis Foran's older stepbrother, Ronald, had been keeping an eye on his mother's strange behaviour and needed no further convincing that something was going to happen. Ron, who had been a father-like figure to the younger Forans since their dad died, took charge. Ordering the children out of the house immediately, Ron ran to his bedroom. Before Francis left the kitchen, he observed his brother do something that he still laughs about. “Ron ran into his bedroom and grabbed a small sum of money he had put away there and the few dollars he had in his room, he gave to my mother. To this day, we've never had an explanation for that action. Perhaps he though [sic] the house was going to crumble with him in it.”
Whether Ron thought the house was crumbling to the ground or not was the last thing on anyone's mind that evening. Scrambling from the dinner table, the family ran from the house as fast as they could. In the yard their initial fear changed to bewilderment. The Forans couldn't see anything to explain why the buildings were trembling like leaves on a tree in a Point Latine breeze. The strangest thing of all was that while buildings were shaking, the ground seemed perfectly still. In his writings, Brother Foran remembers that evening as an exciting but strange event:
We moved out in front of the barn and watched as Ron went up the (light) tower. The top had been toppled from the kerosene light and the lamp was burning out of control. Ron threw the lamp out the small door in the tower. He then lit the spare lamp and came back to us.
We somehow connected the shaking of the house with the fire in the light tower. Ron went to the hill to visit the Powers — to visit Pauline to be exact — and also to get the news. The stories he brought back left us even more confused. All the houses had felt the tremor. Most people attributed it to a chimney fire and threw salt down their chimneys (to put out the fire).
Confusion reigned for the rest of the night. As people compared stories, they realized that there were no chimney fires in Argentia that evening, yet they all felt the same tremors. Someone also noted that there was an unusually high tide about two hours after the houses shook.
Francis Foran doesn't remember anything about high tides, but he does remember his disappointment when they were finally allowed back into the house to finish supper. The family cat had all but cleaned off their dinner plates.
It was not until the next day the Forans heard the news that a powerful underwater earthquake had occurred 150 miles south of Newfoundland. The quake, measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale, caused a huge tidal wave that came ashore on the southern tip of the Burin Peninsula, about sixty miles southwest of the Point Latine lighthouse. The tidal wave caused massive destruction over a forty-mile stretch of communities from Rock Harbour to Lamaline.
The first tremors from the epicentre [sic] reached Burin at 5:00 p.m. and lasted five minutes, resulting in exceptionally low water levels on the southern tip of the peninsula. At 7:30 p.m. a tidal wave, or tsunami, of between thirty-five to fifty feet washed ashore. The waves, travelling at a speed of eighty miles per hour from the epicentre [sic], reached the peninsula at a speed of sixty-five miles per hour, creating exceptionally high seas in the area until 10:00 p.m.
Twenty-seven deaths were attributed to the tidal wave and loss of property amounted to over [sic] $1,000,000. In addition, telegraph lines connecting the peninsula and St. John's were severed during the earthquake. Cable lines between Newfoundland and New York were damaged or inoperative. A total of twenty-eight breaks were reported in more than a dozen ocean cables near the epicentre.
Although the ocean near Point Latine swelled much higher than normal high-tide levels, the only damage was a broken lighthouse lamp and a ruined Monday evening supper.
I Remember the Good
With the exception of a tidal wave and the image of battleships in front of the lighthouse, life for the Forans of Point Latine was much like life for most other lightkeepers, especially those who lived near a community. Sunday was always a busy day when women and young girls from Argentia would visit. They came to talk mostly, but often took pictures of the lighthouse. Evenings were a time for men callers. There were four Foran girls so there were plenty of what Brother Francis calls “attractions” for the young men of the area.
Anytime there was a visitor in town, the Forans could expect to see Father Adrian John [sic] Dee. Father Dee bundled his visitors in his old car and headed out over the bumpy road to the lightstation. “Mom always spotted the car as it drove along the Pond Head road. It gave her time to remove her apron and tidy up an already tidy house,” Francis Foran recalls, smiling. Unfortunately, Mrs. Foran never kept a guest book. It would have been a wonderful “who's who” list of dignitaries who visited the Argentia area in those days.
Several American newcomers working on the Naval Base were quick to discover the welcome mat at the Latine lighthouse. One man, a Mr. Hunt, liked the place so much that he and his wife boarded with Mrs. Foran for several months. A cook from one of the mess halls visited from time to time, usually bringing home-baked pies. Brother Foran remembers one day when his mother was not in the mood to entertain visitors. When she saw the cook coming with another pie she locked the door. Obviously perturbed by the reception he had received, the cook threw the pie into Duck Pond before walking back to the Base.
Today, Brother Francis Foran smiles when he talks about his impressionable years growing up in the Point Latine lighthouse. It was a simple life and there were times his widowed mother required considerable imagination and ingenuity to stretch the food basket to feed her children. But they always made it through the tough times. For all the varied times he had on Point Latine, he remembers the good. And, as he would write in his later years, there are many special images that linger still:
One of my favourites was a sailing dory, its jib and mainsail filled with the offshore breeze, scudding around Point Latine. Sitting on the front thwart (seat) was the younger member of the crew of two and in the stern, the skipper, steering the dory with an oar. Both men were dressed in yellow oilskins. The older one smoked a fishermen's pipe, with the tobacco well packed and the screw top keeping the light from blowing away.