Maurice Garin - Family Life

Family Life

Garin was born the son of Maurice Clément Garin and Maria Teresa Ozello in the Aosta Valley in north-west Italy, close to the French border. The name Garin was the most common in the village, which was French-speaking, belonging to five of the seven families. They married in 1864 when he was a 36-year-old labourer and she a 19-year-old employee of the town's hotel. They had four daughters and five sons, of whom two were twins. Maurice was the first son. The cottage in which he was born, now a ruin, still exists.

In 1885 the family left Arvier to work on the other side of the Alps. The wish for a better life is a likely explanation but does not suggest why they travelled so far, almost to the Belgian border. Speculation surrounds the move, possibly because it was in secret. To emigrate needed authority and mayors had been told by the sub-prefect of Aoste to refuse or at least make permission difficult. If the family travelled separately, it would explain the legend that Maurice, then 14, was exchanged for a round of cheese: it could have been payment to a guide to lead him clandestinely over the mountains or payment in return for custody of the son.

Garin worked as a chimney sweep, which again fits having been led individually across the mountains. Among the sub-prefect's reasons for stopping emigration was concern about "avid speculators who, claiming to teach a trade to young children, especially that of chimney sweep, set out to seduce their parents with promises and false hopes get their children... to get a large profit from them by exploiting their fatigue, their misery and sometimes even their life.".

Garin moved to France. By 15 he was living in Reims as a chimney sweep He moved to Charleroi in Belgium but by 1889 he was back in France, at Maubeuge. If the family had travelled together, it had by then dispersed. The second son, Joseph-Isidore, died 100 km north-east of Paris in 1889. The father had returned to Arvier, where he died shortly afterwards. His brothers François and César seemed to have stayed in northern France because, with Maurice, they opened a cycle shop in the lower end of the boulevard de Paris in Roubaix in 1895. His brother César Garin (16 December 1879, Arviers - 27 March 1951) also competed as a professional cyclist from 1899-1906, and lived in Paris (Seine) until his death at the age of 71. His best results were: Roubaix - Bray-Dunes 1899 3rd; Paris-Roubaix 1904 2nd; Tour de France, 1904 2nd on Stage 5 to Nantes. Another brother Ambroise Garin (10 May 1875, Arviers - 31 March 1969) also competed as a professional cyclist from 1899-1903, and lived at Argenteuil, Val-d'Oise until his death at the age of 93. His best results were: Paris-Roubaix 1899 3rd, 1901 2nd, 1902 3rd; Bordeaux - Paris 1900 3rd, 1902 3rd.

Garin moved to Lens, Pas-de-Calais in 1902 and lived there the rest of his life. He bought his first bicycle for 405 francs (approx €1,400 at 2008 values), twice what a forge worker would earn in a week of 12-hour days, in 1889. Racing did not interest him but he did ride round the town fast enough to be called a madman — le fou.