The St. Stephen is said to have invented the candy bar and even today produces quality chocolates sold all over the world. Both of her parents were from New Brunswick and we have no record of when they moved to Calais. Robert is listed as a laborer. This tenement, since demolished, just below Main street on Hog Alley was likely where Ella first lived in Calais. Ella attended school in Calais through the eighth grade and four days of high school before dropping out in to work to help support the family.
This was fairly common at the time. Although Calais had a population twice that of today her class graduated only 25 students in Most young people were in work of some kind well before their 18 th birthdays. It was not to be. So, on April 1st, , she opened her candy business on Monroe St. But at second sight, her own now literally world-known candies turned out to be the logical and happy end of a long process.
Her father was from Saint Stephen, her mother from Miramichi. She worked on the candy counter, but in her spare time she helped the candy makers. Here her professional training was completed, but it was a training based on what she saw. It is a crunchy butterscotch, and it must be watched with vigilant eyes during the cooking, because the butter burns so easily. Sugar and butter, and nuts roasted in the batch itself. When it reaches a certain temperature, it turns a golden brown and then brittle.
Then it is poured out upon a granite slab, looking like a printer stone and quarried at Red Beach. It is pulled very thin, coated with the veneer of milk chocolate and dusted with ground almonds and cashews. Her business in three years has grown to such a point that she wonders how she can take care of it.
Her marketing in Calais is almost incidental. Her candy now is shipped all over the world. She has customers in Turkey, Japan, Korea, Australia and she believes that every state in the union. Locally she sells mostly to Canadians and tourists. This past summer was very busy, and August was simply one sleepless night after another.
