New France History: Filles du Roi / Daughters of the King
Realizing the role of women in increasing the population from within (vs. migration from without), Louis XIV encouraged female wards of the state to migrate to Canada by offering them incentives. Known as the daughters of the king…
Life During The War
Life during the war went on as usual, in some ways. I enjoyed working at Benoit’s Clothing Store. I liked dressing up to go to work. We were always meeting …
The Howe Street Apartment
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 […]
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 […]
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.
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.
A Maine Franco Memoir: My Sister Gertrude Almost Gets Spoiled
An excerpt from We Were not Spoiled by Lucille Ledoux as told to Denis Ledoux. While our family was already large by today’s standards—there were already 6 kids, it was to grow even larger. In the spring of 1929, my mother was pregnant again and she made arrangements to have the baby in the hospital […]
Here to Stay: Developing Nationhood and Community in New France
Here to Stay: Developing Nationhood and Community in New France Here to Stay: Developing Nationhood and Community in New France is excerpted from my historical memoir Here To Stay. Here I write about my maternal ancestors Bartélémy Verreault and Marthe Quittel. As I recorded genealogical information—the births, marriages and deaths of my ancestors, I began […]
A Franco-American Memoir: April Fool’s Day
DL—The following excerpt is from We Were Not Spoiled, the Franco-American Memoir of Lucille Verreault Ledoux as told to Denis Ledoux. My Father Learns About April Fool’s Day Moving to Howe Street also meant that I lost my friends on Jefferson Street. I could still get together with Juliette and Jeannine at school but they […]