The Mother Land

I have begun planning yet another trip. This time it is to the Mother Land, a place I have never been. But it is a specter in my life.  When I was around four or five, my mother returned to teaching. Part time, substitute at first, but then eventually getting hired full time to teach French. As a result, my day care were my paternal grandparents, Charles and Peg Marcoux. They lived on Cedar Lake. My grandfather was recovering from a heart attack and his doctor wanted him to walk, so I would walk with him and he would tell me stories. Names of towns in a far away land often came up: Drummondville. Saint Eugene. When I was in the fourth grade, my family moved and I switched schools to St. Ann's a French-Canadian Catholic Grammar School where not only my parents attended as children and my aunts and uncles on both sides, but also where my great aunt, Lucille Lefebvre and possibly my grandmother attended. Again I was confronted with my heritage, but having never been there, nor speaking or understanding French, it was a foreign land. In addition, since my mother left for work before my school started, I went to my great aunt's Lucille's house before and after school, a block away. And I heard more stories of this foreign land.

Fast forward to the present. The call of Canada is loud enough that I can no longer ignore it. So during my winter break, I plan four nights. As I research, I am shocked it is only a 6-7 hour drive from Bristol, my hometown. I found a small hotel in Quebec, the old city. I found another in Montreal.

Next, I started to looking for some of the towns that I heard throughout my early years. My grandfather said them so quickly, that I often misheard and/or misunderstood. It wasn't until I was an adult and met people from the region or spoke with my uncles that he was saying St. Eugene. In my search I stumbled upon a genealogy page that eventually led me to the rootsweb page for my grandfather.  So instead of grading essays, I decided to create a family tree, so Ifound a website that allowed me to just that. I spent an afternoon and some of an evening, tracing my ancestors back to the original immigrant, Pierre Marcoux, from Cry, France who came here in the mid-1600s.  I found out I am part of the 11 generation of Marcouxs on North American soil.

So I would like to visit the church where my great grandparents were married in St. Eugene.

Churches turned into libraries. A local radio show and a duet at Bar Sacrilege. A church.