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“On noiseless hinges it yawns before us

Iron-bound and stronger than ten-thousand wills:

Erected over centuries of servitude

It yet survives protesting time

And stands before us, tall and grim,

A stark reminder that he who enters here

Will not quit easily,

And the gate is too high for us to climb…”

The first page of Thomas Courtenay’s novel of grey factory life begins with poetry from a minor character, a writer who needs to take a job at the auto plant.

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Courtenay was a Chrysler line worker who needed to write.

The 89-year-old Windsor man won’t get to see his first book in print but he died Thursday knowing a local publisher wants to read his manuscript.

“Even now I’m going to be dying, at least it will get read,” Courtenay said in a low whisper hours before he chose a medically-assisted death Thursday afternoon.

Courtenay conveyed the sweat and struggles of the Chrysler assembly line workers into words, writing and typing after his shift and between the busyness of being a young father. The seasoned workers told him of brutal conditions, the fight to unionize and unimaginable sacrifices they made to keep their jobs and he scribbled the narrative as soon as he got the time.