How can the calm, cleanliness and safety of a neatly segregated, Franco-American neighborhood serve as a security blanket to a child trying to understand that French was the language of the neighborhood, but not spoken everywhere else in the city?
Why do some other relatives live in Little Canada or Centralville or, even, Dracut? There were so many questions popping up constantly in my head that seldom was there time to worry about Mémère Bolduc, my father’s ailing mother, spending long days partially asleep, again, in bed in her small bedroom next to the large pantry where my mother prepared so many delicious, home cooked meals for us all.
Everything fascinated me, it seems. Monsieur Poulain, our landlord, who lived on the first floor of this white, two-story, Victorian, clapboard house complete with ample attic space for storage, introduced me, just about on a daily basis, to the various challenges that I would encounter as a boy and a man in the years to come.
Being retired from an obviously successful job or position, which had permitted him to purchase and maintain an above average house in a middle class neighborhood, this gentle, older gentleman became my friendly guide in the world with valuable lessons about rhubarb gardens, tomato plants, watering lilac bushes, and on the care and upkeep of the many chickens, which he housed in a separate enclosed shed located in the large backyard of his property.
Both English and French were heard in our sheltered abode in Pawtucketville, Lowell, Mass. in these USA
Many questions and observations dotted the day-to-day activities of the people around me, who only spoke French, although they understood the English heard on the radio or in newsreel reports at the movie theaters. Life was a bilingual experience right from the start.