Peter Maurin, Agitator

Extract

Peter Maurin was 72 years old when he died on May 15th, 1949. He was born in a small French community, 200 miles from Barcelona, one of a family of 28 children. His own mother died after giving birth to five children, and his father married again and there were eighteen more children. Amongst them now there are four teachers, three carpenters, some farm hands. Some of his sisters are nuns and some of his brothers are members of religious orders.

Some years ago Peter gave the following facts:

‘My mother’s name’, he said, ‘was Marie Pages. She died in 1885. Of her five children only I and Celestin, a brother who was eighteen months younger than I, and my sister Marie, two years younger than my brother, were left. My whole name is Aristide Pierre. Pierre was my grandfather and my godfather. He died at the age of ninety-four and he was never sick. He worked in the fields until he was eighty-five, and after that he could not because of his eyes. So he stayed home and made baskets and recited his rosary. He liked to work. He knew it was good for him.

‘The last I heard of my brother he was the, head of a school in Paris, St Clotilde’s, a parish school. He had been a Christian Brother, but when they were secularised they no longer wore the garb but went on teaching just the same. One of my half-brothers taught for the Christian Brothers’ school and he was married to a school teacher who taught in the public school.