Family in Quebec

Ever since we got back from Quebec a year and a half ago, I've been working on the family history of a bunch of ancestors from Quebec City. I didn't even know I HAD ancestors from there, and true, they are rather distant cousins, but I have felt more and more close to them and very happy to do their temple work. I found my first name when I went to do initiatory ordinances at the temple and was randomly given the name of a lady who had been born in Quebec. Because I felt that little connection with her, I remembered her name and her birthday, and when I went home, I looked her up, and I was related to her! I was able to request her other ordinances, and while I was doing that, I started looking at records for her siblings and parents, leading me to even more people.

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Lest we forget, lest we forget

Perhaps you are all thoroughly tired of Quebec posts, but I persist! This is the last one, I think: a little collection of details about the house and city, which we can read and smile at when we are old and grey. (Not so far off.) I think the kids will like remembering these things someday.

1. About the shape and character of the city:

Willa Cather wrote this about Quebec:

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One Last Miracle

 

We planned at first to leave in the early morning on the Monday, but looking at the weather and other logistics, decided to leave on the Tuesday instead. It turned out well because that gave us one more non-Sunday day to do things—like get poutine one last time! We packed and cleaned like madmen so we'd be mostly done and free to have fun on Monday.

Sunday, after we went to church and said goodbye to everyone there, we were all very sad. We cheered ourselves up with my chicken soup. ("In June I saw a charming group/Of roses all begin to droop./I pepped them up with chicken soup!")

There was a snowy, blowy storm that night. We were happy to get to see it.

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Je me souviens

Every time we walked along the streets of Quebec City, explored the neighborhoods, or drove through the villages up and down the river, we saw churches. Beautiful, towering, prominent, empty churches. It was strange to me, and then interesting, and then unsettling—almost haunting. I wanted to understand it, so I read about Quebec's "Revolution Tranquille" in the 1970s, when the Catholic Church's influence in Quebec fell from pervasive to almost nonexistent. Church programs were turned into government programs, a huge church bureaucracy became government bureaucracy, and the entire character of the province changed overnight. The numbers are almost unbelievable:

• 95 percent of the population went to Mass weekly in the 1950s, but only 5 percent do so today. 

• The birth rate went from 40.6 births per 1000 in 1909, to 8.8 in 2023.

• The abortion rate ("voluntary termination of pregnancy") went from 1.4 per 100 births in 1971 to 40.2 in 2002.

• In 2003 (this was the earliest I found numbers for; it was probably higher later) there were 2746 churches in Quebec; by 2022, 713 of them had been demolished, closed, or converted into something else.

I think most people in Quebec aren't bothered by those statistics. They see it as progress, and consider themselves well rid of religion's controlling hand. Obviously I'm not qualified to discuss the ins and outs of Catholic influence in government; I'm sure you could make a case for corruption and overreach and coercion and whatever else. Perhaps church and state were too intertwined, and individual Catholic leaders may well have been as power-hungry and prideful as any politician. But, also obviously, I am sympathetic to the Catholic church, our sister church in Christ, and I think about all the generations of faithful people who built those thousands of churches scattered through every town and every village in Quebec. Surely there were people who kept the faith because they had their own connections to Jesus Christ; people who had many children not because they were "forced" or "intimidated" by the church, but because they loved God and loved their families. People who had generations of religious belief in their blood; who looked for miracles; who served and sacrificed because they chose to put God first. People who would be horrified by what their grandchildren and great-grandchildren have forgotten.

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The Last Walk

I'm a great one for "last walks," it seems. I've gotten in the habit of praying while I walk or run, and now I feel I can't face any big event or important change without having a good long walk and talk with the Lord about it. I feel downright unsettled until He and I have had our time together and I've poured out to Him all the things I'm feeling—doubly so when there's a lot of uncertainty or fear or sadness mixed in. Before we came to Québec, after we came to Québec, when we moved from our old house, before each baby was born, during miscarriages, whenever I get a new calling—whatever it is, you can bet I will be out walking or running to try and make sense of it all.

Of course I say plenty of prayers on just regular old everyday walks too—but I become very sentimental and especially remember these significant "last" or "first" ones! This walk was beautiful; such a gift on the last morning in Quebec. There was new snow and the sky was clear and brittle, and the sun rose and turned everything a cold pink and blue. Oh, I miss this city.

Eglise St. Matthew

Looking back down the hill on Rue Honoré-Mercier. The wind is always bitter on this street—I'm not sure why; maybe the tall buildings make a sort of tunnel for it?

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Dogsledding

At a Relief Society brunch in Quebec, Daisy and I were struggling through in French talking to one of the ladies, and she told us she owned nineteen dogs! I thought maybe we misunderstood that number, but she confirmed…oui…dix-neuf! She told us that she was saving up money so that she could take her dogs and drive to Yukon territory to live. I thought she said she was living in her car, or maybe the dogs lived in her car, but I wasn't sure.

Then she said, "If you want to, you can come visit me and ride the dogsleds." 

I said, "Oh, that would be so fun!" but it was one of those moments where I wasn't really sure if that was an actual invitation or just an imaginary "sometime" or if there was some Quebec etiquette about what she really meant. But then she typed into Google Translate on her phone so I could read in English: "It would be criminal to come to Quebec and not do this." 

Well. That seemed clear. I said "Yes! But…we leave next week!" 

"Come on Saturday morning," she said.

So I copied down her address, and she gave me a bunch of qualifiers like "it's near there" and "look for the green mailbox and then turn to the other side" and "there is a road going off the main road…" which I just prayed I would remember. Lots of people in our branch said they didn't speak much English but when I got talking to them and the need was great, they'd break it out! But this lady, Mylène, really did not speak English at all, so I kept repeating everything she said back to her slowly in French as a question, just hoping, hoping I had understood it all correctly. She lived forty minutes out in the country, across the river through Lévis, and I felt there was a good chance we would get lost!

Later in the week Mylène texted and asked if we could help her put up a big tarp/shelter when we came, which I was actually relieved about because it felt like we would be less of an imposition if we were helping her. And she said "I will have a fire in case the children get cold." So, Saturday morning we got up and dressed as warmly as we could. The kids didn't have snow pants or boots (we hadn't had room to bring any), but they wore multiple layers of pants and socks and I hoped it would be enough! It was only five degrees outside!! (That's -15 C.) One of the coldest days we'd had yet.

Clementine did NOT want to wear the lion hat. She was very sad about it.

But we gave her Malachi's bally leopard to hold in the car (he is snuggling in my hat here) and that cheered her up!

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The darkest evening of the year

I've never felt it was worthwhile to take little kids ice skating because they will just (a.) fall down and (b.) get cold, both leading to (c.) lots of whining. And I was inclined to pursue the same policy in Quebec, right up until the older kids begged to be able to take their little siblings and promised they would "help the whole time" even if there was falling, whining, and crying. Well. I didn't want to get on the ice myself, but with several other willing helpers…and with the little ones SO excited about the prospect…Sam and I said we would do our part by funding the skate rentals and coming to watch. So that's what we did. 

And they were so cute! Yes, they did fall, and they did whine somewhat…but the girls and Malachi and even Teddy took turns pushing the little sleds, and carefully helping the little ones get their balance, and picking up and kissing cold little hurt hands, and I think everyone actually had a wonderful time! In fact, we ended up letting them go twice because it was so fun! (The big kids, of course, were going every day with their thrift-store skates.)

This is my favorite picture in the entire bunch. I can't help laughing every time I see it. Clementine's poor stiff posture, like a sack of turnips that has fallen off the truck. Her helpless arms sticking out uselessly from her puffy coat. And Junie turning back in surprise at her lost cargo, cheery smile already pasted in place, ready to pick Clementine up and jolly her back to health as necessary. It's all so good!

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People we love

 

Isn't it strange how when you look at the faces in someone else's pictures all you see are strangers? And you can think dispassionately "that guy looks weird" or "that lady looks like my 3rd grade teacher" and that's the end of it? While, meanwhile, I look at these faces and feel a great swelling up of love and memory. Oh we love these people. It's not like we spent every hour with them even when we were in Québec. We all lived our own busy lives. But the time we did spend together was somehow magnified or deepened enough that we grew to love them so quickly. I keep wondering if we will find a way to go back and visit. But even if we do…things will have already changed. It feels so sad.

But this wasn't a sad day. It was a happy one. We made a million cinnamon rolls and invited all our Lévis Branch friends to come over and eat and talk with us on a Sunday evening. It was a mini version of the Butterscotch Roll Party we do on Christmas Eve in Utah. It was a lovely snowy night and our house felt so happy and full with so many friends in it!

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La Citadelle and lots of puppets

The Citadel (Citadelle in French) is a big star-shaped fortress on top of the cliffs above the St. Lawrence River. It's in the spot on the Plains of Abraham where the French were beaten by the British in the Battle of Quebec (that's why Quebec is part of Canada now and not New France), but it wasn't there at that time. If it had been, things may have turned out differently! Anyway, the British Army built up a fortress there later, as a defense against the Americans! But the Americans never did end up coming up to attack. So the Citadelle has never been through a real battle.

It's still a working army base (?), though, housing the Royal 22nd Regiment of the Canadian Army, the only French-speaking regiment.  (They are called the "Van-doos" for the French number 22, vingt-deux. The kids liked knowing that.) They do a "changing of the guard" in the summer months (we never made it to see that). We walked by and around and on the citadel all the time (one of my favorite walks takes you up onto its walls) and we heard the cannon firing every day at noon. But we never actually went in until we were about to go back to Utah! We had a tour of it and went to the museum inside, and I was glad we did—it was very interesting!

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The First Snow

Ky only had a week left in Quebec (he was flying home a week earlier than the rest of us so he could go to a Brandon Sanderson convention) and we were heading out to show him the "mayonnaise sampler" at Chez Victor when it finally started to snow.

(yummm, all these different flavored mayonnaises for the fries)

We had all been waiting and hoping for snow for or several weeks, listening to everyone say, "Usually we have piles of snow by now! Sometimes it starts in October! Winter in Quebec is not usually so mild!" They seemed to very much want to assure us that they could endure much worse than this sissy-winter we were currently experiencing. We loved the mild days, of course, but we really wanted to see some snow too. It was the right time for it, and it would have felt wrong to leave Quebec without seeing any! There had been little flurries now and then, of course, but not REAL snow. We'd heard from the missionaries about how swift and efficient the snow removal was too, and wanted to see that for ourselves.

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Cozy

The days got short and dark so fast in Quebec. By the end of November the sun was setting at 3:52 or some such time. I have never been anywhere where the sun sets in the 4:00 hour (I think sunset is after 5 pm in Utah, even in December) so having it in the three o'clock hour felt otherworldly. I actually quite liked it. It felt cozy and wintry, and the house was snug with the lights of the city outside. (I realize if I were to have stayed through the gloom of January and February and even March…perhaps I would have felt differently.) 

But it did make the days feel so fleeting. I'd go out to do the shopping after putting Gus and Clementine down for nap around 1 pm, and when I walked out of the store at 2:30 I'd see the slanting sunlight and feel mildly panicked and disoriented, like I'd better hurry home to get dinner ready. By the time we ate dinner around 6 pm (or 18h as I finally became accustomed to thinking, just in time to go home), it felt like it had been dark for hours and must surely be about time for bed!

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One last temple trip, Benjo, secret rooms

After we took our trip to Montreal we appreciated Quebec City even more. But the temple is in Montreal, and I started wishing we could get down there to attend one more time. If we crossed the river way up in Quebec, toward Lévis, then we would already be on the Longueuil side where the temple is, and we wouldn't have to go onto the island or deal with Montreal traffic at all. It is only a 3 hour drive, which is doable— (we'd done a temple trip both ways in a day before) but if we were going to do a 7:30 evening session it would make for a pretty late night driving home. So I found a little room in a bed-and-breakfast type place (just bed, no breakfast) for Sam and me and we found an evening we could stay over. Malachi and Daisy would hold down the fort at home.

The street we stayed on was, coincidentally, named the same thing as our home street back in Quebec—Rue Richelieu. The town was called Beloeil (beautiful…eye?) and it was right along the Riviere Richelieu. Our house looked over this peaceful view.

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Bucket trucks, Francophones, "No ascen"

 

We were a little afraid that we would miss the last beautiful days of fall in Quebec City while we were in Montreal, but luckily when we got home it was still pretty! Lots of leaves still on the trees even at the end of October! Everything seemed extra nice to us because we were so happy to be back. :) Here is a collection of a few views around the city, and a bunch of assorted things we did at the lingering end of Fall after Halloween!

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Montreal Biodôme, priestcraft, smoked meat, and living your religion

Montreal is a cool city! And we liked visiting it. But…it also just made us so happy that we lived in Quebec City instead. In our humble opinion, Quebec City is way more beautiful, way less congested, and just more charming in every way. Quebec City feels so much more foreign and European, too. In Montreal, everyone speaks English! Lots of people know English in Quebec, but they start in French and usually let you persist in French, if you want to. But I don't think anyone spoke French to me in Montreal at all! When we left Montreal we were so happy to get back "home" to Quebec!

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The temple, L’Oratoire Saint-Joseph, and Mont-Royal

Once we realized how bad traffic always was in Montreal, we weren't eager to go into the city too much, but of course we had to drop Malachi off at the airport and pick him up, and we had three temple trips scheduled, so we actually saw quite a bit of the island. 

The temple (in Longueuil, on the far bank of the river) was a highlight, of course! It is tiny—maybe smaller than the stake center that shares its parking lot! But it's beautiful. We loved being there. We had missed it! They had an interesting way of choosing the language of the session—the temple president would just stand at the front of the room and ask for a show of hands whether people wanted French or English! I loved doing it in French when we went in September. It was the perfect situation for understanding—hearing words I am very familiar with in English, accompanied by clear French speech and French subtitles! I understood every word! But strangely enough, both of these later sessions ended up being in English. There are many English speakers in Montreal! I think there are two whole English wards there. It seemed both of the sessions we attended on this trip were split about 50/50 between French and English speakers, so I don't really know how the temple president decided which to do!

The temple is only open Wednesday evening through Saturday, and Malachi left for Utah on Wednesday afternoon, so sadly he didn't get to do baptisms, but Daisy and Junie went with Sam and had a great time. The younger kids and I went to the store and then just played and walked in the (very small) temple grounds. It was such a warm night, we didn't even need coats!

While we walked around I talked to Malachi on the phone. He was in the Detroit airport and had had his wallet stolen!! But it turned out okay. The thief (a cleaning guy in the airport) took a pouch of all Malachi's stuff (passport! Driver's license! Debit card!) while Ky was working on the other side of a table, and Malachi noticed soon afterwards that it was gone and went running after the guy, who he'd seen cleaning there! The guy of course acted innocent and told Malachi he'd already turned the pouch in to his supervisor, but when Malachi tracked it down, his cash and airpods were gone. He filed a police report there at the airport, but without much hope of ever getting anything back. He was so grateful at least to have his passport back so he could fly home!

So that was an adventure.

Sam and I did a temple session the next day while the kids played at a nearby park. Another nice day, happily! The kids found a dead mouse but otherwise had an uneventful time.

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Saint-Calixte and the Lake House

Before we ever left for Quebec, Malachi decided that he wanted to go home to Utah halfway through, to go to a debate tournament. He was talking about driving (what??? as if we would have let him drive alone across the entire country…in our car) and when I said no way to that, said he would buy his own plane ticket. Well. Sam and I finally agreed since it was his own money. And when he found a pretty good deal to Salt Lake from the Montreal Airport (about a three hour drive from Quebec City), we decided we would go down and stay in Montreal surrounding the days Malachi would be gone, so we could take him to the airport and pick him up without making the whole trip twice.

We wanted to visit Montreal at some point anyway, so it was a good excuse to do it! We found a house in Saint-Calixte, about forty minutes from Montreal (which sounds like it wasn't such a great efficiency after all, but it was forty minutes out in a different direction, not towards Quebec City, and everywhere is far from the actual city of Montreal because traffic is so bad!). After we had booked the rental house, I realized that Saint-Calixte is very near to Sainte-Julienne, where we stayed with the older boys (and baby Teddy!) years ago when Sam did a workshop at the Schoolism House! So that was a fun coincidence. We never got into Montreal proper on that trip at all, but we remember the countryside as being so beautiful and were excited to see it again!

The house we ended up staying at was so cool. It was on the tiniest little island, just big enough for the house and a little yard. You drove in on a small driveway and then were completely surrounded by water! It was beautiful! There were some boats we could use, and I wasn't sure how much we would get to use them, but the kids ended up loving them and getting pretty good with them, so they spent hours rowing around the little lake! So fun. 

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Guests in Quebec

I was hoping that some people would come and visit us while we were in Quebec, because it seemed like it would be so fun to show everyone our favorite things! Our older boys came, and that was wonderful, but I didn't know if anyone else would make it. (My mom was thinking of coming, but then couldn't, so that was sad.) But one day Sam got a random message to his work email from one of Malachi's friends, asking if he could come and visit Malachi on a certain weekend! We hardly even know the boy, Evan, but I knew he was a nice kid (all of Ky's friends are) so we said yes—and then he asked us to keep it a surprise for Ky! I was hoping Ky actually liked him and wouldn't be unpleasantly surprised by the visit, haha.

And then, my friend Andrea who lives in Maine and so kindly let us stay in her house on our way to Quebec, decided she wanted to come visit too! With her eight kids! (Actually, two of her kids are grown and living elsewhere now. But then she has a French exchange student living with her too. So seven kids.) I was super excited to see her but also had to tell her, "Okay, but you understand we have no extra beds, right? So you'll all just be sleeping wherever we can manage to put you? Probably the floor?" She said she was up for that, and so it was decided! And…it was the same weekend that Evan was coming!

That's 19 people staying in our little house, if you're counting.

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You are missing from me

I'm writing this somewhere in South Dakota, sitting in the passenger seat of our van and looking out at the endless rolling grasses, so different from the trees and rivers and lakes we've left on the road behind us. I'm surrounded by coats and shoes and stuffed animals that have been thrown at me by exuberant and/or fighting children. I'm thinking about what needs to be done when we get home. Unpacking, of course. Cleaning up the inevitable grime that it didn't ever occur to Seb, dear boy, to even look at in the past six months. Laundry. Wrapping the pile of Christmas presents that arrived in the mail while we were gone. Figuring out a new schedule as we re-start piano lessons, ballet, regular school, Malachi's new job, and on and on and on. 

But I don't want to think about all those things. I want to think about where we were, what I miss. I don't know why I miss it so much when I have so much good to return to. Anyway, how much can you miss something you've only known for half a year? How much can you love it?

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Spooky Walk, Lost Gus, and Halloween

 

Do people celebrate Halloween in Québec, you ask? Yes. They do. I don't know if they do trick-or-treating quite like Americans do (but there is some form of it…though when we asked a friend who grew up here, "What do French speakers say at the door for 'trick-or-treat'?", he said, "I don't know, I don't think we say anything. Just hold your bag out for candy!" Hahaha. Shocking!) but there were lots of decorations around the city. I don't know if it's a mischief-making night here like it is in some big cities either? I hope not. We didn't see or hear any mischief going on, but who knows. Anyway, we didn't expect any trick-or-treaters at our house and we didn't get any. And we didn't go out ourselves either. That's only fun when you know your neighbors and all their kids, anyway, in my opinion.

BUT it was fun seeing the Halloween things throughout October and having our own little family Halloween party. We will always remember it!

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St. Patrick's Cemetery

This was a Sunday where everything around the whole city was pretty, every single tree and every single street! After church, Sam and I dropped the kids off at home and drove to an area just a little outside the radius of where we usually walk, a ways past the Plains of Abraham above the river.

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