NUMBER 53 ■ SUMMER 2017 ■ $2.00 ■ DINE WITH LOUISE PENNY AT THE MORRIN CENTRE ■ NEW ENGLAND CAPTIVES AND THE URSULINES ■ BOOK QUEST RETURNS TO CELEBRATE CANADA’S 150TH The Morrin Centre is managed by the Literary & Historical Society of Quebec. Society Pages are published with the assistance of Canada Post. Quebec Heritage News Subscribe Now! Quebec’s English-language heritage magazine. Popular history – Profiles of remarkable people and events – Contemporary issues in heritage conservation – Book reviews – Insightful commentary – and much more. Individual: $30 for 1 year; $75 for 3 years; $120 for 5 years Institutional: $40 for 1 year; $100 for 3 years; $160 for 5 years To pay by cheque, please mail payment to: QAHN, 400-257 rue Queen, Sherbrooke QC J1M 1K7. or pay by Paypal to: [email protected]. For more information, call (819) 564-9595 Toll free: 1-877-964-0409. EDITOR Deborah van der Linde LAYOUT Patrick Donovan PROOFREADING NUMBER 53 ■ SUMMER 2017 Louisa Blair ■ PUBLISHER CONTENTS Literary & Historical Society of Quebec 44 chaussée des Écossais Quebec, Quebec G1R 4H3 PHONE Letter from the President 1 Barry Holleman 418-694-9147 FAX From the Executive Director 1 Elizabeth Perreault 418-694-0754 GENERAL INQUIRIES Transactions [email protected] WEBSITE www.morrin.org Bilingual Women 2 Britta Gundersen-Bryden ■ Library Pages LHSQ COUNCIL Book Review: The Lost Boy 4 Deborah van der Linde [email protected] Barry Holleman, President Pick-a-Book 5 Marjorie Lepage Ladd Johnson, Vice-President Gina Farnell, Treasurer Kennedy Diana Cline, Secretary Book Quest: Oh Canada! 6 Donald Fyson, Honorary Librarian Huffman-Baillargeon Éric Thibault, Member at Large Jacob Stone, Member at Large New Acquisitions 7 Deborah van der Linde Jean-David Banville Peter Black Jack Bryden Events & Activities Katherine Burgess Arthur Plumpton Spring & Summer Events 8 Sofia Collares Grant Regalbuto Cheryl Rimmer Literary Feast 2017 9 Alicia Lamontagne Sovita Chander, Ex-Officio Meet our Tour Guides 10 David F. Blair, Ex-Officio Tomas Feininger, Ex-Officio Miscellanea Cameron J. MacMillan, Ex-Officio Annual General Meeting 11 Rosemarie Fischer ■ DIRECTOR Recipe: Pudding Sauce 11 Alicia Lamontagne Elizabeth Perreault Interim Executive Director [email protected] FULL-TIME STAFF Gail Cameron Accounting & Financial Clerk [email protected] LIBRARY HOURS Rosemarie Fischer Administrative Assistant [email protected] Sunday 12:00PM-4:00PM Manon Fortin Interim Rentals Coordinator [email protected] Monday CLOSED Stefanie Johnston Guided Tours Coordinator [email protected] Tu e s d ay 12:00PM-8:00PM Alicia Lamontagne Interim Development and Communications Director Wednesday 12:00PM-4:00PM [email protected] Deborah van der Linde Library Manager Thursday 12:00PM-8:00PM [email protected] ■ Friday 12:00PM-4:00PM The mission of the Morrin Centre is to share and foster English-language Saturday 10:00AM-4:00PM culture in the Quebec City region. The Morrin Centre is administered by the Literary & Historical Society of Quebec. Front cover: Margaret F. Delisle, Allison Areias-Vogel, and Rachelle Solomon at the Women and Bilingualism event. SOCIETY PAGES LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT Dear members, friends and will be presented for a 14th consecutive year, and our partners, My Morrin Program, which allows members to shape our programming with the Centre’s support, is currently Since I last wrote to you in March, looking for project proposals. We also look forward to we have had several successful connecting with you at our second annual Members’ events. We hosted Visions of Day in September. Community, a series of workshops that culminated in the unveiling of The Centre’s vitality greatly depends on its members. a mixed media exhibit on our Therefore, it is with much enthusiasm that we can community. We also presented two very successful announce that we have already met our goal of bringing events as part of our Quebec’s Bilingual Women series. in 150 new members by the 150th anniversary of A panel discussion on May 6 highlighted the impact of Confederation. Building on our success, we will bilingualism on women throughout Quebec’s history, continue our efforts to sign up 150 more by the end of and a conversation titled Bilingualism and Diplomacy the year. We hope you will help us spread the news and was held on May 18 with Allison Areias-Vogel, U.S. convince your family and friends of the benefits of Consul General in Quebec City, as well as Margaret joining our community for only $20 a year. Delisle, a prominent figure in Quebec politics. Yours sincerely, In addition to these new events, we are looking forward to seeing past events make a comeback in the summer Barry Holleman and in the fall. Our summer reading club, Book Quest, President FROM THE INTERIM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Members, Friends and Partners, On July 2, we will be hosting, in collaboration with the English Language Arts Network, our third Arts Alive I feel honoured to have been Quebec! Festival. We hope you will join us for the chosen to act as Interim Executive concerts featuring Final State and Krief, and the free Director until December 2017 and workshops for kids and adults. Don’t miss the street would like to thank Council for fair on Monday, July 3 for more music, art and activities. entrusting me with this role. I would also like to thank Barry The summer is a wonderful opportunity to discover or McCullough and our team for all rediscover the Morrin Centre. In addition to our our accomplishments, and everything they have set in cultural activities, we have been offering daily guided motion for the summer and fall. tours since the end of May. We are expecting tens of thousands of visitors in the coming months. Some will Our annual fundraising dinner is an example of what we be learning about our building’s bicentennial history and can all look forward to in the coming months. The ninth its various functions, from prison, to College, to learned annual Literary Feast will be held on November 2 and society and cultural centre. Others will be gathering promises to be a remarkable evening thanks to the with family and friends to celebrate weddings, participation of Christiane Germain of Hôtels Le anniversaries and other significant events. Germain as honorary chair, and New York Times bestselling-author Louise Penny as keynote speaker. We look forward to seeing you this summer at the Louise Penny will be talking about her latest novel, Glass Morrin Centre. Until then, stay in touch through our Houses, and she will also be giving a special Bury Your website, newsletter and Facebook page. Dead tour of our building. A limited number of tickets are available for the dinner and the tour. Be sure to Elizabeth Perreault contact our staff to purchase yours. Interim Executive Director PAGE 1 SUMMER 2017 TRANSACTIONS BILINGUAL WOMEN WERE AMONG QUEBEC’S FIRST EDUCATORS By Britta Gundersen-Bryden At the corner of Quebec City’s Donnacona and Des The last of the Ursulines’ New England captives was Jardins streets, only a few blocks from the Morrin Dorothy Jeryan (or possibly Jordan). She entered the Centre, there is a statue. Two clasped hands point convent in 1720 when she was about twenty-two years skyward, in tribute to Quebec’s women educators. It is old. It seems she was captured in 1703 when she was not surprising that the statue is across the street from very young, had resided in an aboriginal community for the Ursuline Convent; in 1639 the many years and was not certain of her Ursulines opened the first girls’ school exact age. She died on September 14, in North America. 1759, the day after the British forces attacked Quebec City. What may be surprising is that several of the earliest educators in New France Lydia Longley was twenty years old were English captives. As European when captured in 1694. Mary Sayward conflicts played out in North American was only eleven when captured in colonies, more than 1500 New 1692. Their fates took them to Englanders were captured in frontier Montreal, where they joined the raids and taken north to New France. Congregation of Notre Dame. On About 250 eventually settled along the September 16, 1699, Lydia became “the St. Lawrence; they became part of the first American nun”; a few months later fabric of New France in the early 1700s. Mary took her vows, too. Like the A handful of the captive girls and young Ursulines, the Congregation sisters women entered religious institutions, were teachers. They had a mission in became teachers and, by necessity, Quebec City’s Basse Ville as well as a bilingual. Five taught in or near Quebec mission on l’Île d’Orléans. Mary was City. sent to the Basse Ville mission in 1709; she died there in 1717. Lydia was The best-known of the captives to assigned to the small l’Île d’Orléans make a new life in Quebec City was mission at Sainte-Famille in the 1730s. Esther Wheelwright. She was captured Esther Wheelwright She would have stopped at the Basse in 1703, when she was six years old. Ville mission periodically when she She spent the next six years with the Abenaki before travelled between the island and the Montreal Mother being ransomed. She entered her novitiate at the House. Lydia Longley died in 1758, in the final full year Ursuline convent in 1711. She was not bilingual but of the French Regime. trilingual, having learned the Abenaki language. In 1760, soon after the British victory in New France, she Historians have yet to explore the strength of any links became the first religious sister of Anglo origins to between the Anglo Ursuline and Congregation sisters in become Superior of the Ursulines.