Acadian Ancestral Home

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our cousins and friends!

It has been a very busy week not only as Thanksgiving approaches but working on the Acadian Ancestral Home Cemetery pages for New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The cousins in Moncton who took all of the photos (Hector Boudreau and his wife Jeanita as well as Francis LeBlanc) as well as yours truly hope that the photos of all these headstones will benefit the many cousins who will never be able to travel to the Canadian Maritimes to visit the graves of their family members. Hector and Francis started taking photos a few years ago and just kept going. First for their own records but then as a joint project so we could put them all online. It has taken a while given that there are over 60,000 photos but we've done it and come spring they will resume taking photos of other cemeteries.

Also added to the Acadian Ancestral Home this week are poems by James Perry of Prince Edward Island that I decided should be show cased. James is very talented in many ways and is an especially good write and poet. I thought everyone would enjoy reading his poems. They are entitled 1755, Beaubassin, Acadie Where Art Thou and Hebert's Garden. I have asked James to send along any other poems he likely has sitting around . James and I met through my web site as so many of us have. In October 2000 I met him when I visited Prince Edward Island for the first time. His wife had prepared a great lunch for us and he had brought soda/pop made on the Island for drinks. He also had his son Christopher with him who was but a toddler at the time.

James and Christopher came to meet us at the Acadian Museum in Miscouche. It is a must place to visit for anyone visiting Prince Edward Island! Later that afternoon Georges Arsenault also met up with us and we went out to a late lunch/dinner together.

When I stop to think about it, I have met a lot of wonderful people in the years I have been on the Internet. These are real blessings to remember on Thanksgiving Day.

Today I am so grateful for my family and friends; for my husband, daughters, son-in-law and one daughters' boyfriend. I remember all of our Ancestors and the rich heritage they've given us. I remember all of the past family gatherings when our parents were with us and how every Thanksgiving my mother would invite the whole extended family to dinner. In the wee hours of the morning I could smell the flower being browned for the ragou she would be making as part of Thanksgiving menu.

My mother's recipe was her mother's recipe and her grandmother's recipe. My nephews learned to make it and still do. This year I haven't made it because we have been invited out to dinner. In addition to the ragou, my mother would buy the biggest turkey she could find! Every year we went to the Turkey Raffle held in our parish and though we rarely one anything, one year we won *3* turkeys including the last one to be raffled which was a live turkey. That wouldn't be allowed today but it was back then.

Nice to get a bit nostalgic at this time of the year. I'm sure you all have very fond memories of your holidays wherever you grew up.

So wherever you are today, we are bound together in spirit and in the love of our forebears!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Cousin Lucie