IL ÉTAIT UNE FOIS DANS L’EST (murale #15)

Updated April 15, 2024

Murales Sherbrooke – Quizz – et plus encore! – Le progrès de l’Est

# IL ÉTAIT UNE FOIS DANS L’EST (murale #15), Sherbrooke: what you’re looking at—and why it matters

If you’re the kind of traveler who learns a city faster by reading its walls than by reading plaques, “Il était une fois dans l’Est” (Murale #15) is one of Sherbrooke’s most information-dense stops. It’s part of Sherbrooke’s well-known mural circuit and it’s explicitly designed as a memory map: everyday life, recognizable local figures, and cultural references anchored to the city’s eastern neighbourhood (“quartier Est”).

Location (as listed by the mural organizations): 55 Rue King Est, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada.
Coordinates (from your dataset): 45.4040705, -71.8858839
Size: 68 ft × 37 ft.
Year created: 2003.

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## What the mural depicts (and the timeframe it’s pointing to)

Both Sherbrooke mural references describe the scene as daily life in Sherbrooke’s eastern neighbourhood in the 1940s–1950s, framed as a tribute to the people who built and shaped the area—along with elements of Sherbrooke’s musical and cultural history.

That time window isn’t vague decoration. The supporting descriptions repeatedly anchor details to specific decades and events (including a flood date in 1942), which is a good cue for how to “read” the wall: not as a generic old-time illustration, but as a montage of identifiable local stories.

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## How to “read” Murale #15 like a local history cheat sheet

The mural is documented in panels/sections with named references. Here are some of the specific figures, institutions, and moments that the official mural descriptions call out—use these as your scavenger-hunt list while you’re standing in front of it:

### Food, shops, and street life
– Pâtisserie Duquette (Adjutor Duquette), identified as a pastry merchant beginning in 1933.
– Marché Therrien, opened in 1935 by Wilfrid Therrien; after his death in 1942, Bernadette Patry (“Madame Therrien”) continued operating it for 37 years.

### The city’s memory markers (including a precise flood date)
– A “man with newspaper” section notes a visible reference to the June 15, 1942 flood, after around thirty hours of heavy rain, with the river rising roughly twenty feet above normal (as described).

### Literary and civic figures tied to Sherbrooke
– Éva Senécal, described as a novelist and journalist/editor for the women’s page of Sherbrooke’s La Tribune from 1930–1936, and connected to literary gatherings in Sherbrooke.
– Georges Sylvestre, noted in connection with the establishment of the Caisse populaire de Sherbrooke-Est on October 5, 1943.
– Canon Dolor Raphaël Antoine Biron, described as priest of Saint-Jean-Baptist for 30 years and cofounder of the Eastern Townships historical society (per the mural site).

### Immigration, work, and family narratives
– Marie Addolorata Gentile (Mrs. Antonio Fabi) is described as arriving in Canada in 1908, marrying that day, having 14 children, and later taking over as company president for 15 years after her husband’s death in 1942.
– A “young couple” vignette is explicitly framed as newly arrived job-seekers hoping to build a home and family.

### Sherbrooke’s music and broadcast culture
– Louis Bilodeau, tied to CHLT Radio (1947) and the lead-up to CHLT-TV, and identified with the folkloric program “Soirée canadienne” beginning in 1960 on CHLT-TV.
– Ti-Blanc Richard (Adalbert Richard), connected to a 1937 appearance on CHLT Radio’s “Bonjour Voisin” and later performances across Quebec and beyond with his band.
– Jim Battistini, described as an Italian-born accordionist performing widely (the text even mentions an accordion weight figure).

Why this matters for your visit: this isn’t just a photo backdrop. It’s a compact index of Sherbrooke’s civic institutions, neighbourhood commerce, and cultural life—documented with names and dates you can cross-reference later if you want to go deeper.

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## Practical visiting notes (no guesswork)

– Go to the exact address listed by the organizers: 55 Rue King Est, Sherbrooke.
– Use the mural circuit resources if you’re chaining multiple walls in one outing; the circuit explicitly includes this mural and positions it among other Sherbrooke works.
– If you want the most reliable “what am I looking at?” companion, the mural pages provide a numbered, section-by-section explainer (in French and English) so you can match faces/scenes to the intended references.

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## Nearby context: why Rue King Est makes sense as the setting

The mural’s narrative is tied to King Street East as a commercial and social corridor (“Marché Therrien,” the mention of shops, and multiple civic/cultural references tied to Sherbrooke-Est). The point is not that everything happened on this exact wall, but that the street is used as a stage to tell the neighbourhood’s story across several decades.

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## Data quality + “outdated info” flags

– Year created (2003) and dimensions are consistently stated across the principal mural sources.
– On-the-ground conditions (visibility, construction scaffolding, access changes, lighting at certain times, or whether any nearby businesses have changed) are not covered in the cited sources—so I’m not going to guess. If you’re planning a timed photo stop, check the current mural listing before you go.

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## Internal links (requested) — what I can and can’t do

You asked for two contextual internal links. I can only add true internal links if I know RealJourneyTravels.com’s actual URL structure for Sherbrooke/Quebec content (so I don’t publish broken or invented URLs). You didn’t provide that structure here, and it’s not something I can “assume” while staying 100% factual.

If you paste two relevant slugs (for example: your Sherbrooke guide + your Quebec road trip hub), I’ll weave them into the copy cleanly in-context.

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