Ultramar

“Yesterday I had a customer come in and he stood there and talked with us for, I would say, about half an hour and the same thing this morning, a longtime customer came in and told us he was going to miss us,” Delly told The Record.

She and her husband, Laurent, opened the gas station 48 years ago, back in 1973. Their son, Larry, started working there at the same time. He was still a student, though, and only became a partner in the business 10 years later.

Delly said her youngest son initially joined the family business, but ultimately decided to part ways to start his own towing company. He ran a successful operation for 30 years, she said, before retiring due to health issues.

All the while, Delly, alongside Laurent and Larry, ran the show at the Ultramar, not only providing gas, but also acting as a general repair, tune-up, welding, and towing shop for residents in the area.

“I can remember in the beginning we used to have lineups way past the motel here coming in for gas,” Delly said, pointing down the street towards Motel La Paysanne.

While the gas station isn’t as busy as it was back then, the Paradis family has kept it open 363 days out of the year for nearly five decades. They only close for Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. According to Larry, it was about time to shift gears.

He is almost 64 years old now. Delly is 82 years old, and Laurent turned 90 years old on Tuesday. Everyone is getting older, Delly said, and it is exhausting, working almost every day, pumping gas for customers, and running a repair shop.

It is still quite bittersweet for Delly, though, knowing that they won’t be seeing the same people rolling through the gas station every other day. They aren’t like the Esso, either. They are a full-service station, which is rarely seen these days.

“The companies don’t want service, they want self-service with a depanneur, car wash, Tim Hortons, A&W, and you put a manager in there and let them run it and that’s that,” said Larry.

This is how they were able to make bonds with many people in the Lennoxville community. While a person waited for their gas to be pumped into their car, they could talk to the employee, or head inside to have a conversation with Delly and Laurent.

The family have strong ties to the Eastern Townships. Laurent grew up in Albert Mines, and they also previously owned a gas station on College Street, over a decade before taking over the Ultramar. And they have made their fair share of memories.

But one memory stood out to Delly. When the business was just getting on its feet in the early days, they had an incident with their flatbed truck, which their youngest son had named Smokey. The truck went missing, only for the police to discover it a couple days later.

“We had a flatbed, and somebody stole it, and they took off with it,” Delly said. “The police called us a day or two later, they found the flatbed and it had a safe in it; they used it to rob a bank.”

Larry said the robbers used the truck to break down a wall in order to get inside the building. When the police contacted the family, Larry jokingly asked the police to keep the truck and instead hand them the safe full of cash. Unfortunately, he had to settle for the truck.

While they close a chapter on the Ultramar, the family business, Service G.L. Paradis Inc., will continue to provide other necessary services. There will be mechanics there every day, Larry said, and residents can always call them if their car needs to be towed.

The next step is replacing all of the signs, but other than that it will be business as usual for Larry. However, for Delly, there is a slight sadness, losing out on the opportunities to speak with community members, and connect on a personal level.

“I’m going to miss talking with the customers, you know, when they come in and put their credit card through if they are in a hurry, it’s just a ‘good morning’ and ‘goodbye, have a great day,’ but if they have time, they’ll chitchat and I’m going to miss that,” said Delly.