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Archive | Franco-American Stories

In this archive category, you will find a significant collection of Franco-American stories. These posts are of interest to Americans of francophone Canadian descent and to their friends and allies.

Most of the stories below present a slice of Franco-American life in the middle of the twentieth century. They were written by men and women who wished to preserve the story of their lives, and in so doing, the authors also preserved a record of their ethnic group that once comprised one-fifth of the population of New England.

A legacy one generation is leaving to another

These accounts record often overlooked details of this significant ethnic group in American life. (Quick: who launched the credit union movement in the US? If you said Franco-Americans you are right!] These Franco-American stories contain much information thought to be too marginal and so too frequently lost to students of history.

A basic function of memoir is to give witness to a time and a way of life gone by. This category, Franco-American stories, succeeds admirably at this task for both a time and a group.

In addition, some of the posts cover the history of early Canada in the days before the Conquest. These cover a time when New France covered most of North America, when North America might rightly have been called New France.

Send us your Franco-American stories.

If you have a Franco-American story, please consider sending it in for our consideration for these pages. [We have no interest in stories about the Continental French (les Français de France) or francophone Africans unless they highlight an interaction with Franco-Americans. We are not interested in stories about anglophone Canadians—again unless they highlight an interaction with Franco-Americans.]

Starting Out On My Life

I was too young to marry, and my parents could not afford to have me stay at home. My mother took care of most of the housework, and my parents needed my salary more than they needed me to help her full-time at housekeeping. My mother had never worked outside the home except for a […]

Perreault Girls

Visiting My Parents’ Home Town, Thetford

It was my first time visiting Thetford since I was three. I did not remember anything from the first trip except being so pleased to sleep at my Lessard grandparents’ house. In my growing up, I had not had the luxury of staying over at a grandparents’ place as many other kids in Lewiston had.

point of view in a memoir

Life In The Good Years

The following is an excerpt from We Were not Spoiled by Lucille Ledoux as told to Denis Ledoux. Our house at 428 Webster Street that we moved to in the fall of 1949 was a cozy little house, and it fit our family well.

The Memoir Network

The Summer I Was A “Slave”

In the summer of 1933, I started to work for the Laneuville family, who lived up the street. Like my mother, Mrs. Laneuville had a large family. However, she was not feeling well so she asked my mother if I could be spared to provide some help. This was to be my first job outside […]

Franco-American History: Earthquake Hits New France- February 1663

On Monday, the 5th of February, 1663[1], at about five o’clock in the evening, an earthquake[2] that reportedly lasted for as long as a half hour shook New France. In Québec, Marie de l’Incarnation wrote about hearing a loud noise and a “terrible buzzing sound” coming from far away. She described it as the sound […]

Emilia memoir of relatives

Aunt Emilia

Ma Tante Emilia and Mon Oncle Louis both worked and, since they had no children to spend their earnings on, they had more disposable income than my parents. They would drive up from New Auburn in a little Ford…

The Memoir Network

We Move to a New Home

My parents must have had little hope of ever putting aside enough money for a down payment to buy a house of their own. We were still in the three-bedroom apartment on Shawmut Street when…