WORK IN PROGRESS!!!
Escape to the USA
Daily life for the inhabitants of Quebec Province in the 19th century had presented these pioneering folks, coming from distinctly different ethnic origins, with challenges galore as they each sought to establish meaningful lives among the native inhabitants of the region, who had occupied and lived off the land for more than a thousand years.
However, the benefits of the worldwide Industrial Revolution had arrived late to this southeastern portion of Canada. Some investors, who were based within the British Empire, had successfully launched smaller-scale, industrial enterprises in logging and in lumber manufacturing, however, the appearance of paved roads and adequate, industrial, railroad lines needed for a broad distribution of goods and services lagged behind.
It was one thing to create a product in Quebec, however, bringing it to market successfully was another. A strong distribution approach was still in the developmental stage.
Parochial School Education (1944 – 1953)
At Saint-Louis de France elementary school, the nuns, les Soeurs de l’Assomption, taught us the history of French Quebec as part of our school curriculum. First, there came the “Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the USA” followed by the singing of “O, Canada, la terre de nos aïeux“.
After these initial ceremonies, we, children, were told to sit down at our desks (nos pupitres) because real learning and lecturing was about to begin. In spite of this admonition, one could still hear some background murmuring in the crowd of students, which usually consisted of about 30 children per class.
“Silence, mes enfants.”
No further exchanges with class chums were allowed!
Of course, also included in the program of studies were courses on geography, American and Quebec history plus arithmetic, reading, spelling, speaking, and writing both in English and French. Special attention was always focused on the lives of the saints over the centuries and the martyrs of the Church during the years of Roman persecution. Since each day of the liturgical calendar is ascribed to the remembrance of a particular saint, our religion teacher never lacked for material to keep the class informed. Naturally, the awful conditions suffered by the poor and destitute across the world often became a focal point. for further reflection. Although we were quite poor ourselves, we were rich by contrast. We were always encouraged to drop some pennies into the collection bowl paced in the back of the classroom.
WORK IN PROGRESS
History of our Ancestors in Quebec after the Battle of the Plains of Abraham (1759)
In elementary school, we students all learned, early on, that the way of life lived by our Quebec forefathers had come to a sudden halt in 1759 when British forces had successfully stormed the palisades of Quebec City. This decisive and famous victory of the English General Wolfe’s forces over the French General Montcalm’s troops marked the end of “la Nouvelle France” on the North American continent. It was at this point that one-hundred and fifty-nine years of native, French cultural presence ceased to exist and flourish. In 1763, France ceded most of its possessions in eastern North America to Great Britain in the Treaty of Paris, which marked the end of the French and Indian War.
For me, as one of the Franco-American students in the classroom, this piece of Canadian history pronounced by my teacher, a Quebecois nun, was like a stab in my young heart regarding the personal valor and worthiness of all of my relatives from 1759 to the present.
Suddenly, our pronounced poverty, limited scholarship, poor English phrasing and second-class citizenship in the “Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave” were easily understood. My relatives and I represented nearly 200 years of being societal losers in competition with the prevailing, Protestant, Yankee ruling class composed of Scott’s-Irish and English settlers going back to the Mayflower.
Little Self-confidence
I first then felt downtrodden and hopeless as a child. “We were losers with little hope of ever being OK”. This pitiful realization has been with me over the years in spite of some note-worthy accomplishments in the interim. Poverty is like a life-long, mental disease with few remedies.
[End for now]