Hello et Bonjour mes amis,
At this time of the year, I tend to reflect on events and special times from the past to better understand them or understand them for the first time. Maybe, we all, eventually, understand everything in a flash of whitish-blue light but that awesome light has not shown up in my living room, yet.
So, for what it is worth, here are a few memories straight out of 1940s and 1950s from Lowell-town.
“La Noël” was a religious time of joy, religion and family activity. The ceremonies were, naturally, in Latin and also in songs dating back to pre-Revolutionary (before 1789) France when the Brits had won one of many wars against the French of the old monarchy. In 1743, the English were the official new rulers in all of Canada including Quebec.
No French-Canadian church ceremony in Lowell was held in English, the tongue of British oppression in Quebec for more than 200 years. Politics seemed to hold a grudge, even back then.
Songs:
“Les anges de nos campagnes”
Gregorian chant – an excellent way to use your Latin knowledge
Food and Meals
Le Réveillon après la Messe de Minuit – Large family house party with ham, turkey, scalloped potatoes, pies, etc. happening after all church goers had walked back home after Midnight Mass. Everyone in my immediate neighborhood walked since very few families around us had an automobile but if they owned a car, this vehicle was probably already garaged for the duration of winter. But, mon grand-père, Paul Charbonneau, le laitier d’un certain succès financier, probably drove back home with his wife, Elizabeth, in his Oldsmobile. In his sixties already, Pépère Charbonneau had already made his mark and needed to impress nobody with his remaining walking skills.
Le boudin une saucisse paysanne
Boudin
Blood sausage, AKA, “entrails”, a not too delicate sausage – not for the more sensitive palates among us.
La tire d’érable – a maple syrup taffy
Boissons – whisky, bière, vins, egg-nog, Coca Cola, root beer, brandy and, of course, Moxie, too.
Summary:
Many French-Catholic relatives (parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins) in Lowell had experienced the austere, if not, barren years of the 1880s to the 1920s when Quebec immigration to New England, New York, Michigan, Minnesota and Ottawa (an estimated 900,000 made the journey – See reference below) was the only viable solution to staying alive for working parents of four, five and, sometimes, ten or twelve children. Of course, death, disease and starvation on a rocky plot of empty farmland was an alternative, but not a happy possibility.
Family planning was, possibly, still then a Scots-Irish, English Protestant, religious concept, which had escaped the community planners of the super-poor, highly under-educated, Catholic brethren, who still saw the world straight out of the Middle Ages (476 AD to 1453).
These are the relatives plus their beliefs, hopes and disappointments that I grew up with. They gave me a unique point of view into Lowellian enlightenment and truth. Where else could a native boy enjoy the glittering benefits of the Middle Ages – the Black Death and the Crusades were examples – and also be exposed to advanced science and engineering concepts through the Lowell Technological Institute, LTI, AKA, U-Mass-Lowell?
Looking back, I remain grateful for the challenges and lessons from Lowell’s Middle Ages and also for the many counter-measures offered to the world by the Standard Model, the French “Centre National de Recherche Scientifique”, CNRS, NASA, NOAA and the brilliant work of Watson and Crick on genetics.
Reference regarding the 900,000 Quebecois that migrated during La Grande Exude: “The Dream of a Nation” by Susan Mann