Sit in on this Virtual Memoir Tour
Today, I am urging you to sit back and enjoy this virtual memoir tour in which I read an excerpt read from my memoir French Boy/A 1950s Franco-American Childhood. Here’s some necessary background: I did not learn English until I went to grade school. My brother had preceded me in school where he had learned […]
Excerpt from My Memoir French Boy: I come into the world.
DL: “I Come Into the World” is an excerpt from my memoir French Boy / A 1950s Franco-American Childhood. The use of Canadien, the French version of Canadian, in this text as everywhere in the memoir is to distinguish an English-speaking Canadian from a French-speaking one without resorting to the term French Canadian. [When was […]
Interview with Denis Ledoux French Boy / A 1950s Franco-American Childhood
DL: The following interview I conducted with myself is available to anyone wishing to reproduce it in a blog, on a website on in print media. We ask only that you let us know you are using the piece. Q. Can you tell our readers what French Boy is about and why you were impelled to write […]
Writing An Old Family Story
I was one of those fortunate children to have known well both sets of grandparents. My Ledoux grandparents lived upstairs for most of my growing up while by Verreault grandparents lived 10 miles away. Because of this, I’ll admit writing an old family story is somewhat easy for me as I heard so many of […]
Memories of My Grandfather
My grandfather William Ledoux would be 133 years old were he alive today. I would like to take a moment to honor his life by sharing some memories of my grandfather. His early years He was born in Lachine, Québec, on February 17, 1889, the oldest of what would be a family of six children. […]
My Mother’s Memoir: Making a Home at the Howe Street Apartment
When my parents came down, they lived in a tenement on Lisbon Street. My father worked at Dulac’s which was nearby, and while the mills were by their tenement, my mother did not seek outside work but kept house.
Becoming an American—Why Not?
DL— Stories about immigration and citizenship form the backbone of our great American story as much today as in past times. My ancestors were among the millions who came here in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Here is an excerpt about becoming an American from We Were Not Spoiled, the memoir of my mother […]
The Wrong Point of View in a Memoir Can Throw the Story
I was challenged by the point of view in a memoir. I had put off completing the book because I could not resolve its thematic problems.
Franco-American History and The Lachine Massacre
In the evening of August 4, 1689, the night of the Lachine massacre, a violent rainstorm hovered above the Saint Lawrence and the Island of Montréal. Lightning flashed repeatedly across the sky and deafening thunder resounded above the seventy-seven houses of the community of Lachine. As the Canadiens slept in their isolated farms, fifteen hundred […]