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- Category: Past Issues
caption:
Susan Dumas and Michael Paquin with the DSM sign. Courtesy photo.
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Michael Paquin taking sign down at Belding. Courtesy photo.
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
THOMPSPON — Susan Dumas thought there would never be a way for her to get the sign that meant so much to her.
“The sign” was the DMS Specialty Machine sign that has hung on the outside brick wall at Belding for more than a decade. A simple black and white sign. Nothing flashy. Not terribly large. Hanging next to the door of the business started by Gene Dumas. He died in 2012 and his partner closed the business in 2017. And the sign stayed and stayed on that brick wall.
Last spring Susan Dumas mentioned to Michael Paquin that she would love to get that sign. It represented memories of Gene Dumas.
Paquin said his uncle, Gene Dumas, started the business long ago, moving it to the Belding building in April, 2006. Dumas developed a specialty machine and held a patent, designed machines to rebuild customers’ machines, repaired napping machines for textile companies. (Napping is process of raising the surface on a textile, making the fabric feel softer and it traps air that serves as insulation).
Paquin decided the sign needed to come home to Susan Dumas and got to work on the surprise gift. With permission of the building’s owner he took the sign down Oct. 1, cleaned it up a bit and on Oct. 2 took a very special gift to Susan Dumas in Thompson.
Paquin said: “When I walked into my aunt Susan Dumas’s house, she was lost for words and couldn’t believe I was able to get the sign for her. The room was filled with love. She thought there would never be a way for her to ever have possession of it.”
The sign meant a great deal to Susan Dumas. It also meant a great deal for Paquin.
He described his feelings about his uncle: “He was a good man with morals, dignity and respect. He was one of the smartest men that I knew. If there was a problem, he always had a solution for it. It took me years to realize what type of man he was, and the older I get, the more I find myself like him.”
That’s a good sign.