Family Party

Home in Quebec City for the holidays, Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent, 66, effortlessly shucked his public position for the private role he likes best. In the comfortable, 17-room yellow brick house he built on aristocratic Grande Aliee in 1912, he seemed like any other head of a family. His two sons, three daughters and 13 grandchildren were around him. There were large family dinners in the big, homey dining room; Madame St. Laurent took over in the kitchen, got to work with her favorite French Canadian recipes.

Every evening Grand-Pere St. Laurent, heavy-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, read to his grandchildren. Christmas Eve and Sunday morning the family went to Mass at Saint-Coeur-de-Marie, instead of St. Patrick's Church across the street from their house. They like the French sermons better than the English.

Each weekday morning Louis St. Laurent was up at 8:30. After breakfast, Chauffeur Franc,os Dion, who has been with the family 26 years, drove him to his old law office in the Price Building, where his two lawyer sons carry on the family practice. He chatted with them about their cases, talked with the local politicians who dropped in, kept in touch with Ottawa by phone. He turned aside political questions. When a reporter asked him if he thought that he would be reelected, he cracked: "I think people are tired of extraordinary men and of extraordinary events. Like Truman, I am an average man."

The Prime Minister made only two public appearances. The Quebec Bar Association gave him a dinner; he went to the Liberal Reform Club to hand out gifts to 45 orphans. This week, there would be a family farewell party, for which Madame St. Laurent would fix a 29-lb. turkey. Then Grand-Pere St. Laurent would head back to Ottawa.

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