When my Grandma Madeleine was four, her mother, Florence, took her and her two older sisters, five and seven, out to the Montréal shopping district to buy new shoes. It was 1934, almost five years into the Great Depression. Canada was hit hard, second only to the USA.
How do you feel about these off-the-wall names that some of my early Québecker ancestors gave their children? Girls SymphoroseTheotisteMarcellineJosephteApollineScholastiqueCedeliceHarmoniaZelire Boys SilfroyPolydoreEnguerrand
Before factory-made textiles, making fabrics took up such enormous amounts of female time that little girls had to start preparing for wifehood as soon as their fine motor control came in. Any spare minute women and girls had, their hands were busy …