Children

Sailors

Healing Body and the Mind

The Gagetown Hookers

Albénie Arsenault (1903-1983)

Clifford Sentell (1900-1990)

Though women and girls were generally at the centre of mat hooking, men and boys certainly played a role in its history. From hooking tools to occupational therapy, men’s involvement in mat hooking cannot be overlooked.

When women planned a new mat, it was a family affair. Thérèse Melanson, among many others, remembers that her mother would set up a corner where she piled used wool clothing and children were taught to unpick all the stitching so that she could then use the material to hook. That’s how they knew a new mat was coming. Boys and girls alike were tasked with seam ripping and sometimes the cutting of the material into strips.

In 2009, during the first mat registry in Saint John, NB, one man recounted a childhood story. Since his mother was a mat hooker, he was always worried that if he got a hole in his underwear his mom would take them and turn them into a mat.

It has been said that those woolen undergarments make pretty flowers. In the Maritimes, the underwear manufacturer Stanfield’s Ltd. is a household name, and both Francophones and Anglophones tended to call long johns “Stanfields” by the name of the company that made them.

One also hears stories of sailors in coastal towns hooking on their boats during their long journey, or at home to pass the time during the long winter months. It has also been said that fishermen, very apt at making and repairing nets, used those tools, or a variation of them, to hook mats during the off seasons. It seems British and Scottish sailors also made mats using what is called the “proddy”, “proggy” or “thrumming” method of pushing strips of fabric through the burlap from the top down.

Mat making, whether for the floor or the wall can also be used to heal the mind and heal the body.

During and after the First and Second World Wars, when soldiers started coming home physically and emotionally wounded, their rehabilitation took the form of occupational therapy. In some instances, students coming out of the Applied Arts program at Mount Allison University in Sackville, NB, became occupational therapists or as they were then called, ward aides. There was a growing demand for qualified craftspeople who could lend their knowledge, support and service to wounded soldiers. Artists and artisans alike would volunteer to help in this capacity.

Once they connected with the patient, they had to assess his needs and capabilities. Then, together with the soldier, they would choose an activity or craft that would benefit them the most. It was something that they could and wanted to do, or that could be adapted to their abilities. Mat hooking and other crafts were useful in helping regain muscle strength, motor skills and even cognitive skills through decision-making and design.

Pegi Nicol MacLeod, a New Brunswick artist who lived in New York, answered a call from the Modern Museum of Art for a competition entitled “Art in Therapy”. They were looking for craft ideas that soldiers could do while in hospital. She proposed to use rug hooking for that purpose. She reached out to Madge Smith, craft shop owner in Fredericton, NB, to ask if she could send the design and mat of the little horse, if agreeable to a certain Mrs. White, the woman who had hooked it for MacLeod. Pam Black, a weaver from Sackville, also worked in occupational therapy with rug hooking and weaving.

Mat hooking was, and is, also a form of recreational therapy, to keep the hands and mind busy but also to express creativity. Many men have found this to be helpful. Raymond Scott, of the husband-and-wife mat hooking duo known as the Gagetown Hookers, started hooking at his wife’s suggestion.

Handiwork is not only “women’s work”, which is of great value in and of itself, but it also has a healing value. Participants in the REACH (Resources, Education, Activities, Connections & Help) Centre program in Fredericton, NB, have found that mat hooking alleviates their anxiety, helps them connect with others at the hooking gatherings, and gives them the opportunity to use their creativity and express their feelings. One hooker talks of choosing her subject based on the person for whom the mat is being made.

As Ralph W. Burnham, antiques dealer, puts it in Jessie Turbayne’s (1991: 98-99) book: “not all medicines come in a bottle”.

E. Raymond Scott (1905-1991) and Lydia E. Clarke Scott (1908-1996) are well-known hookers from Gagetown, NB. They married in 1931 and later bought Lydia’s father’s farm in Summer Hill, NB. There they raised pigs and milking cows. In 1952, the Government of Canada expropriated their land when creating Canadian Forces Base Gagetown, an immense army training base. Being forced out of their home and farm really affected them and the year after they moved out, Raymond was struggling to deal with the change. Lydia suggested he take up hooking as a therapy, and he took his wife seriously. So seriously in fact, that he never stopped hooking.

Lydia, being artistic, started designing mats for Raymond and he would hook them. Raymond learned to hook from his mother, Effie Rae Nickerson Scott (1881-1956), who hooked out of necessity and exchanged her mats for new flooring. He was a faster hooker than Lydia, who had also designed mats for her mother-in-law. Thus, the renowned hooking team was created: Lydia would draw the design and choose the colours, while Raymond who was colour blind, hooked the mats.

Once Raymond retired from Canadian Forces Base Gagetown as a heavy equipment operator, his sideline occupation became a full-time affair. He and Lydia started selling their mats in a gift shop, The Little Red School House in White’s Cove, NB.

The couple were already popular when Maine antiques dealers and auctioneers Larry and Jean Dubord encountered the Scotts when hunting for mats in New Brunswick. The Dubords were astounded when they entered Lydia and Raymond’s home; it was full of mats. Before they left, they had bought all the mats and were on their way to a great partnership. Over the next six years, the Scotts created 600 mats, averaging two mats a week. Farm settings, with pigs – kissing pigs in particular – and milking cows were among their most popular designs. The mats were sold exclusively to Dubord to take to the United States for resale. As profits in the mats rose, Lydia and Raymond’s share increased. They were also allowed to hook for friends and family. Most of the Gagetown Hookers mats left the region and the country, just as so many other Atlantic Canadian mats have.

One of the most interesting aspects regarding Lydia and Raymond Scott is that their mats couldn’t be made without both partners’ involvement. Years into the partnership with the Dubords, this was finally recognized. In some duos, typically the designer is recognized while the hooker is anonymous. In this instance, initially the mats were marketed only with Raymond’s signature. Fortunately, this oversight was rectified eventually and both Lydia’s and Raymond’s names appeared on the mats.

The Gagetown Hookers enterprise illustrates the importance of both the hooker and the designer. Design, colour choice, fabric choice and hooking skills are all integral parts of mat making.

Albénie Arsenault, also known as Daidais, learned to hook from his mother. Although both his parents hooked (Émilienne Cormier and François Arsenault), he is the only one in his family to have continued the craft. He started hooking after retiring from Canadian National Railway and having worked as a cook in logging camps in Saint-Paul, NB, and across the United States. Before hooking, he used to draw on old cardboard boxes and create collages with newspaper clippings; designs he reused in at least 100 mats. He hooked to pass the time, as a hobby to keep his hands and mind busy on rainy days, but he was also inspired by the many creative members of his family. His oldest grandchild, Pierrette, was the only one who had the opportunity to learn how to hook at his side in the quiet of his living room.

Daidais’ family owned La Mitaine, a gallery on Main Street in Moncton, NB, that sold his mats, his daughter Monique’s fabric dolls, as well as very creative pieces of other artists. Daidais was surrounded by artists and influenced many hookers. His son, Guy Arsenault, was a well-known Acadian poet/painter and his granddaughter, Maryse Arseneault, is an accomplished artist and curator. His wife, Laura Bourque Arsenault (1914-2009), was also a leading figure of the Acadian literary world and a published author and poet. The mat, Ben and Mam, is actually an homage to his wife. In 1981, he exhibited his mats at the Galerie Sans Sous, before the Aberdeen Centre came to be. The Pascal-Poirier House in Shediac, NB, mounted an exhibition with his daughter Annette in 2010, filling the Senator’s historic house with his colourful, exuberant and happy mats. Countless hookers, locals and tourists had the opportunity to see his work. Like many today and previously, Daidais was a “recycling” hooker, using old blankets and fabric, fleece, polyester, flannel, cotton, denim and hosiery in his mats. His charming, irregular hooking technique with its high loops and his expressive imagery are among the reasons he has such a following.

Clifford Sentell was born in 1900 in Salisbury, NB. He was a carpenter, ran a snack bar and cooked. He was the organist for the Salisbury United Church for over 25 years and postmaster for the Masonic Lodge there. At age 76 Sentell began to hook using designs drawn by family members and friends. He used old clothing brought to him by his friends and once he had hooked them, he could identify from whom and when the materials came. He often dyed his own colours, and he cut all the strips by hand. Sentell was an extremely prolific hooker; his house was filled with mats, some being 2.5 meters long (7.5 feet).

[In an aside in Gender section:]
Mary and Clinton Mason, a married couple, also share their love of hooking.

Clinton showed his wife a design in a store but she didn’t like it. So he decided to buy it, got himself some yarn, and hooked the pattern. He kept hooking things he was interested in like farm animals, deer and both their family farms.