The Corriveau Family of Gilead with parents Beverly and Fernand at center. submitted photo

GILEAD — The Town of Gilead has been known to locals as, “Corriveau Country,” and with good reason.

A book at Gilead Town Office that lists town officials is full of the name Corriveau.

Fernand Corriveau, Sr. was a selectman from 1969 through 1977. In 1982, he returned to that role with an unbroken stint that went all the way to 2008.

34 years of service to the Town.

Beverley Corriveau, Freeman’s wife, was the town’s tax collector for 24 years, from 1987-2011. She also represented Gilead on the school board throughout the 1990’s finishing in 2004.

Home office

“Town office was in our house [on the North Road] for 20 years. It was in the front room. People would come get registrations after five [o’clock] … sometimes they would join us for a meal,” said their son, Freeman Corriveau, who currently serves as Gilead’s select board chair.

He added that his mother never turned anyone away. If someone needed a boat registration or a hunting license, “she would open up special on a Saturday,” he said. Belinda (Corriveau) Glover said her mother’s office was never really closed. “It wasn’t unusual to have people just pop in on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon who wanted to go snowmobiling and needed their registrations … She was always willing to do that for people.”

“Mom knew everyone in town …  if we [the family] were in the middle of dinner they would sit down and have coffee … The house was open to the town,” said Glover.

Freeman remembers heated select board meetings that were held at their house, too.

Even Maxine Corriveau, Fernand’s sister-in-law served in a few stints as school board member.

Belinda said her mother grew up in Albany and her dad, born in 1939, came to Gilead from Canada when he was four. “He was the baby of 18 children,” she said.

Freeman said, besides her work for the town, his mother babysat other children. “When the school bus stopped, multiple kids got off,” he said. Some were at their house to be cared for by Beverly; others were friends of the nine Corriveau kids, Fernand Jr., Fred,  Franklin, Francis, Fabian, Freeman, Belinda, Belissa, and Bethany. Six of the nine Corriveau children and their families still live in Gilead.

Freeman, who has a construction business, said his father was an entrepreneur who owned a sawmill, a logging business, and a hydro mill in Mexico.

Glover, of Gilead, said when her mother started losing her eyesight around 1998, she would help her with registrations and the Town Report.

Today

Currently, Seneca Corriveau, Freeman’s wife, is on the school board. Fabian, Freeman and Fred are in the fire department and Fred is the town’s road commissioner, a job he has held since 2003.

Freeman sings his brother Fred’s praises. “he doesn’t just plow the roads. He maintains the trucks. He’s doing oil changes and brake jobs and when axles break he changes them… the man is a machine. He’s out there doing it at two-thirty, three o’clock, four in the morning. There’s more to it than people imagine.”

Freeman said, “we used to plow all the roads and all the driveways in Gilead up until the early 2000’s. Plowed and sanded them … we do things a little differently in Gilead.”

During the ice storm of 1998, town officials, including Fernand Sr., rented three or four generators. They went house-to-house generating power for the elderly who needed it to chill their refrigerators or power up their boilers.

Of the approximately 14 miles of Gilead roadway, Freeman is under contract to help Fred repair the roads, too.

March 30

Both Beverly and Fernand, Sr. have passed away leaving a legacy of service to the town of Gilead.

Freeman is quick to point out others who made contributions to the town over many years. “”it’s not just my father, quite a few of them served two or three terms if not longer … Ed Taylor, was the road commissioner for years and years and years. Prior to that he was a selectman. He was our fire warden and our constable. That’s how his son got the nickname, Opie.”

Freeman said he hopes to do some kind of memorial to the men and women who worked for the town through the years.

In the meantime, at Gilead Town Meeting on March 30, Freeman will decide if he wants to run for a third term as selectman. He said if there is a qualified replacement, he’ll step down. Otherwise, he’ll run again, helping to keep alive the family tradition of service to the Town of Gilead.