My Family Feels the Depression
Excerpted from Business Boy to Business Man, by Robert Verreault (with Denis Ledoux). On October 29, 1929, the stock market crashed. Of course, I didn’t know that, as I was only six. Soon though, my parents, although they didn’t have stocks to crash, were beginning to feel the effect. By 1930, everyone was slipping into […]
My Aunt Blanche, My Favorite Canadian Immigrant
During these years, Aunt Blanche Lessard lived with us. When she was in her early twenties, while we were still on Shawmut Street, she had come down as a Canadian immigrant, looking for employment and had moved with us to Jefferson Street. In Lewiston, she apprenticed as a hairdresser with a Canadian woman and eventually […]
The Life of a Fille du Roi After She Settles into New France
The Life of a Fille du Roi after she marries
This is the story of the life of a fille du roi, of one of my first female ancestors in Canada. For more stories about Marthe Quittel, click on the tag words Marthe Quittel and Franco-American women.
French sail ships generally used the north channel of the Saint Lawrence there where the Ile d’Orléans splits the river. Newly-married and living in Chateau Richer, Marthe had a good view of the river and had perhaps seen the St-Jean-Baptiste sailing up the Saint Lawrence towards Québec on the second of October bearing 82 more women to be married and 130 engagés.[1] Some of these people would become her neighbors and friends in Chateau Richer. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
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A Fille du Roi Marries
This story is taken from Here to Stay, a history of my 17th century ancestors. A fille du roi was a ward of the state sent to New France to marry. September 22 fell on a Tuesday, a good as any day for a wedding.
A “Fille du Roi” Enters into a Marriage Contract
It is unlikely that either Barthélémy Verreault or Marthe Quittel, my maternal ancestors, came to their marriage with an expectation of romance. Marriage was a state of life, a way of surviving, of producing children who could take care of you in your old age. So much the better if the proposed partner was attractive […]
Filles du Roi/Daughters of the King Meet their Prospective Husbands
The “daughters of the king” were introduced to prospective husbands at the Ursuline convent in the Upper Town of Québec
Filles du Roi / Daughters of the King: Marthe Quittel Comes for a Husband
Among the eight filles du roi aboard the Marie-Thérèse who were coming to find husbands was a woman from Normandy, Marthe Quittel, a Protestant from Rouen.
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 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 […]