My pulse quickened as we walked up the white cement stairs to Ernest Hemingway’s famed Cuban home, La Finca Vigia. His presence lingered throughout the house. It was supposedly exactly how he had left it in the 1960’s— animal heads adorning walls, books and papers stacked on his desk, dust-laden bottles of alcohol on a tray in the living room. The dining room table was set as if Ernest and his wife Mary were going to walk in at any minute and sit down for a meal. Small wire rimmed glasses folded on the bedside table. In the bathroom was (more…)

The following is an excerpt from We Were Not Spoiled by Lucille Ledoux as told to Denis Ledoux. My Parents Establish Themselves in Maine and I Am Born The Howe Street apartment where I was born was my parents’ second home. When they first came, they lived downtown in a tenement on Lisbon Street. My father worked at Dulac’s which was just down the way, and while the mills were not far from their tenement, my mother, who turned 21 on August 15 just a few weeks after marrying, did not seek outside work but kept house. Language was not (more…)

The following memoir excerpt was written by Chris Madsen of Olympia, Washington. I never got used to that first splash of chilly water. It came from a natural spring concealed behind a stockade fence, so clean and pure that we all thought Mr. Trecartin should bottle it. Instead, he let the spring fill the swimming pool his family had owned and operated since 1927. It was called Elm-Tre, a pun on the graceful trees that ringed the grounds, and his own last name. We first joined the pool when I was 8 years old. That summer, Mr. Trecartin taught my younger sister (more…)

The following is an excerpt from We Were not Spoiled by Lucille Ledoux as told to Denis Ledoux. When I remember the next years of my life, I keep wishing I had stayed in school. I was 16 and I had no preparation to do any work. 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 (more…)

Using a Motivation Technique The Memoir Network was pleased to receive this answer from blog reader Justine Kuntz in response to Denis Ledoux’s article titled “Motivation Technique for Writing:” In the spring of 2012 I decided to do what you have suggested in your entry titled “Motivation Technique for Writing.” I had concluded a memoir that I had been working on sporadically for seven years. My goal was to finish it before August and self-publish it for my cousins before we get too old to remember the stories. I chose the birth of my daughter as a good stopping point (more…)

The following is an excerpt from We Were Not Spoiledby Lucille Ledoux as told to Denis Ledoux. There were men in Lewiston who drove people to Canada and back. (They must have set schedules just like the trains, and people must have committed to specific dates.) Anyway, in the summer of 1937, I went to Thetford with a Mr. Nadeau who charged $5 each way. My aunt Gabrielle, who was only two years older than I, was with me on the way up, so she must have come down to Lewiston for a while and then we returned together. The (more…)

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 boys had a bedroom in the back, and Claire slept with us in the front bedroom. Albert and I had bought a bedroom set that had a bed and two bureaus—the pieces all matched and that made me feel good after having mismatched pieces. There was a low bureau with a mirror and that one (more…)

The following is an excerpt from We Were Not Spoiled by Lucille Ledoux as told to Denis Ledoux. Eugène was born on June 11, 1933. Since my grandfather Verreault had died ten months earlier, my parents named the baby after him. They chose Bob and me to be his godparents. I was going on twelve and Robert had turned ten in February. Since godparenting called for raising a child if the parents died, this was a big responsibility which we could not possibly have fulfilled. (Since Gene was the ninth child, perhaps my parents were running out of people to (more…)

We enjoy when our readers submit their memoir-writing samples to us! The following story is from the memoir of one of our blog readers, Lori Robinson. We hope you will enjoy this sojourn in Africa: Two kinds of people sign up for African safaris. Most, myself included, want to see “The Big Five”–-lion, leopard, rhino, buffalo, and elephant. The other people are the birders. So when my birder father announces he wants to join me on a trip to Botswana I have planned for myself, I clarify, “This is not a birding trip.” “I won’t mention my interest in birds (more…)

Hemingway and Dinosaurs

By Ingrid Littman-Tai

My pulse quickened as we walked up the white cement stairs to Ernest Hemingway’s famed Cuban home, La Finca Vigia. His presence lingered throughout the house. (more…)

The Howe Street Apartment

By Lucille Ledoux

The following is an excerpt from We Were not Spoiled by Lucille Ledoux as told to Denis Ledoux. My Parents Establish Themselves in Maine and I Am Born The Howe Street apartment where I was born was my parents’ second home. When they first came, they lived downtown in a tenement on Lisbon Street. My […]

Something About the Water

By Christine Terp Madsen

Starting Out On My Life

By Lucille Ledoux

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 […]

Applying Denis Ledoux’s Motivation Technique

By Justine Kuntz

Visiting My Parents’ Home Town, Thetford

By Lucille Ledoux

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. […]

Life In The Good Years

By Lucille Ledoux

The Summer I Was A “Slave”

By Lucille Ledoux

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 […]