Fonds

The Meloche family fonds focusses on the professional activities of Philippe Meloche, his personal life, and those of his wife, Thérèse Bénard, and daughter, Monique Meloche. It provides a somewhat rare look at the professional and private realities of members of a Montreal middle-class family, from the 1910s to the 1960s.

The fonds is composed primarily of documents chronicling Philippe Meloche's career at the Canadian Pacific Railway, the jobs he held with the company and his involvement in certain union demands and workers' organizations. There are documents related primarily to his job as a train driver, such as a logbook, various forms and information sheets, and a chart of train signals. Correspondence, newsletters and press releases, documentation produced by the Canadian Railway Labour Executives' Association and the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, booklets about the Canadian Pacific pension plan and cartoons criticizing company management illustrate some of the issues associated with working conditions and union mobilization. Several copies of Spanner, a magazine published by Canadian Pacific, are also included.

The fonds contains personal documents that belonged to Philippe Meloche, including his membership cards for clubs and associations and a certificate of vaccination. Several records, such as certificates of good conduct, document the education of Thérèse Bénard and her mother Flore Vincent, while autograph books signed by Monique Meloche's friends and family represent her passage from childhood to adolescence. In addition, the fonds includes church bulletins and copies of the literary periodical Nouvelles soirées canadiennes.

This collection of documents is completed by a photograph taken at the retirement of Henry Boivin (a friend of Philippe Meloche).