French Prairie: A Novel

By Jacqueline Lindenfeld

This is a contemporary novel with historical flashbacks based on library and ethnographic research. The main character (Catherine) is a French student who grew up in Normandy and studied European history as an undergraduate. As a teenager, she had read that French-speaking Canadians were the first permanent settlers in northwestern Oregon in the early nineteenth century. She also discovered that one of those French Canadian pioneers had practically the same last name as hers. Suspecting a family relationship with him, she looks up her father's genealogical chart and finds a blank space where her potential ancestor's descendants should have been listed. Eager to elucidate the mystery, she sets a long-term goal for herself: going to the United States in order to improve her English and investigate the French Canadian saga. Catherine achieves her dream by getting a position as a mother's helper in Oregon, at the price of eventually breaking up with her French boyfriend. During her stay in the United States, she explores the former French Prairie area in northwestern Oregon. She also finds out through ancestry research that she is indeed distantly related to the French Canadian pioneer whose name is similar to hers. She meets some of his descendants and, after some detours and adventures, falls in love with one of them. All along she experiences occasional culture shock but gradually adapts very well to the American way of life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: May 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9781640037519

Book preview

Chapter 1

As the time came to say goodbye to her family at Charles de Gaulle Airport near Paris, Catherine shed a few tears but quickly regained her composure. She joined the crowd waiting to go through the security check, then turned around and waved goodbye to her family. She also blew a kiss to her boyfriend Michel, a former high school classmate with whom she had recently reconnected at a party. There he was, standing by himself in the departure hall on that Friday morning looking sad. For a moment, Catherine felt guilty about going away for a long time. But after Michel and her relatives left the terminal, her mood changed. As a free spirit, she felt triumphant and exhilarated.

This day of late August 2013 marked the beginning of a long-awaited adventure: going to the United States for ten months, away from her hometown in Normandy. "Vive la liberté," she whispered to herself after going through the security check, lifting an imaginary glass of champagne and pretending to drink from it. Oblivious to her surroundings, the twenty-one-year-old petite started dancing on her way to the departure gate. She looked pretty in her tight black jeans and yellow tank top, her long dark hair swinging from side to side, and her multicolored scarf twirling around her neck. As she was approaching the waiting area for her flight, she stopped dancing because someone spoke to her. A man had caught up with her and was asking about her travel plans in German-accented English.

Student? Going to America?

Yes, I go there for ten months.

"Ich . . . I go to America also. To study economics für ein Jahr . . . for one year. He paused for a moment. My name is Kurt. Vat, what is your name?"

Catherine, she said reluctantly, as he started walking alongside her.

Vat you study in America?

English.

"Your English is sehr gut . . . very good."

But it is British English. I want learn American English.

Ver?

Where? In Oregon.

Ver is Oregon?

Without slowing her brisk pace, she drew a simplified map of the United States on the palm of her left hand and showed him the location of Oregon. Vest Coast, he said in a disappointed tone of voice. She glanced at him. He was an attractive young man with blue eyes and blond hair. But she did not like his formal dark clothing, which made him look very serious. She walked faster. He followed her closely.

When she reached the departure gate for the flight to New York, Catherine realized that he had the same destination. They entered the waiting area at the same time, and he went directly to the airline counter to ask a question. She chose a seat by the windows, far from him, annoyed by this stranger’s attention.

On that morning, Charles de Gaulle Airport was crowded with French families leaving for vacation and foreign tourists going home. The waiting area filled up quickly and became noisy. Young children were running around, laughing, and screaming. After a while, Catherine decided to move to a quiet place. As she took a seat away from the crowds, the German student approached her again.

"Warum . . . why Oregon?" he asked, showing genuine curiosity.

"Because of the name of that state, some people think it came from the French word ouragan, hurricane in English."

He seemed satisfied with Catherine’s flippant answer and went back to his seat near the airline counter. She closed her eyes and thought of Michel. Would he wait for her return in ten months, as promised? Should she have canceled her trip to America after starting a romance with him? But she was a risk-taker, and Oregon had been calling her for several years. She flashed back to the beginnings of her interest in that part of the world.

As a teenager, she often hid from her brothers in a room pompously called la bibliothèque (the library) in her parents’ urban middle-class home. Catherine, Catherine, her brothers would call loudly from the yard. She would keep quiet, hoping that they would not find her behind the door of her reading room. Once reassured that the boys had resumed their games without her, she would grab a book from the shelves and start reading.

One day, when she was only fourteen years old but already an avid reader of grown-up books, she grabbed a volume that drew her attention because of its appearance. It looked like an old book probably inherited from her grandparents or even an earlier generation. Obviously, nobody had ever read it since the pages were still uncut, a sign that the book was printed at a time when large sheets of paper were used.

As a matter of fact, it was published in Paris in 1844 under the long title Exploration Du Territoire De L’Orégon, Des Californies Et De La Mer Vermeille, Exécutée Pendant Les Années 1840-1841 Et 1842. The author, Eugène Duflot de Mofras, was a French explorer who had gone to the New World in the early 1840s, traveling all the way to the northwest coast of America. Catherine eagerly read his preface and learned that Territoire de l’Orégon designated a vast region of North America practically unknown at the time. Sensing adventure, she started leafing through the whole book, carefully touching the uncut yellowed pages and sniffing them, peeking at the contents once in a while. She started reading a chapter, cutting the pages impatiently with her fingers. That part of the book described the area that is now known as the state of Oregon. The author’s report was so fascinating that she read it without pausing.

Suddenly, a loudspeaker announcement jolted Catherine out of her reverie in Charles de Gaulle Airport. Boarding time had come for the flight to New York. She excitedly joined the line by the door and started chatting with other travelers. After getting on board and settling into her window seat, she turned to the young woman sitting next to her.

Bonjour, said Catherine with a smile.

Hello, I don’t speak French. I’m an American. My name is Robin.

My name is Catherine.

Are you going to New York for a vacation?

I stay only two days in New York. After that I go to Oregon for ten months.

How interesting! I grew up in Oregon and went to college there. Now I’m starting graduate school in New York City.

"I am student also, three years of studies in European history. I go to la Sorbonne next year to study American history."

So you’re a student too. That’s great. But tell me, why did you choose to spend so much time in Oregon? During my summer vacation in France, I found out that many Europeans don’t even seem to know my home state exists. All they talk about is California, especially young people. How come you’re going to Oregon and not to California?

"I will be au pair in Oregon. My American aunt comes from there. She found a family for me. Her husband is my uncle. He is French and works at the consulate in San Francisco. I can visit them and see California."

Where in Oregon will you be?

In Corvallis. My aunt has lived there a long time.

I see. Your aunt lived there. What is your host family like?

Excuse me, I do not understand. What is a host family?

The family for which you’ll be a mother’s helper.

Oh, my aunt Jane knows them. The mother is teacher.

She is a teacher? What does she teach?

She teaches history and geography. The father is a psychologist. They have two children, a boy and a girl.

How old are they?

Ten and eight. They go to school. I watch them only the afternoon.

That’s a good deal. If you take care of them only in the afternoon, you can do what you want the rest of the time. Great! But tell me something. How come you’re not flying directly from France to Oregon?

I meet French friends of my uncle in New York. They show me the city during two days.

Awesome, so much to see in New York!

Their conversation came to a stop as the plane took off. For a while, Catherine concentrated on the view below: the small agricultural plots, the coast of her native Normandy, then the Channel. After the usual airline safety instructions, she turned to Robin, who was leafing through a magazine.

"Can I pose you a question? Have you gone to les Prairies françaises in Northwest Oregon?"

I never heard of that place. It sounds French.

Yes, the name is French. It was the home of Canadians who spoke French in the nineteenth century. Have you heard of them?

Nope. Frankly I don’t care very much about the history of my home state. All I know is that my ancestors came on the Oregon Trail. They were part of the early settlers in the late 1840s.

But the French Canadians came before that. Some were retired fur trappers with Indian wives. They started farms in the Valley of Willamette.

How do you know all that? I guess you have read it.

Yes, in French books. Do you want see one of them?

Sure. As a future teacher, I’m always interested in books. Even in foreign languages.

Catherine grabbed the handbag she had tucked under the seat in front of her and proudly pulled out the book by Duflot de Mofras.

This one I have read long ago, but I remember everything, she said enthusiastically. After a pause, she resumed speaking, trying to use correct English in order to impart her love of history to Robin. "The author is a French explorer. He traveled to le territoire de l’Orégon around 1840. He met several thousands of French Canadian settlers in the Willamette Valley. They already had farms."

I didn’t know that, said Robin in a bored tone of voice. Her lack of interest did not prevent Catherine from continuing her remarks about Oregon’s first permanent settlers. She launched excitedly into a brief semi-lecture, rising to the occasion by speaking almost fluent English.

"These Canadian pioneers were descendants of immigrants from France. Since they were proud of their heritage, they spoke French and sang traditional French songs. One of them told Duflot that his ancestors had come to Canada from Normandy with le marquis de Beauharnais in the eighteenth century."

Interesting, said Robin yawning.

The names of some of these Canadian pioneers sound really French, like Michel Laframboise or Joseph Gervais, the same for the names of towns that they founded close to their farms, like St. Louis. They named that one after a French king.

Robin was leafing through her magazine, having obviously lost interest in the French Canadian saga. Catherine apologized. I talk too much. Please excuse me, Robin.

She quietly pulled another book from her carry-on bag and pretended to read. It was called Voyages en Californie et dans l’Orégon. She had discovered it in her parents’ library next to the book by Duflot de Mofras. The author, Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint Amant, was another French explorer who visited the Pacific Northwest in the early 1850s. By then the population had changed in the part of the Willamette Valley called les Prairies françaises. Many of the French Canadians and their families had left under the pressure of large waves of immigrants. According to Saint Amant, however, one could still see the area’s first farm, which was established by a former French Canadian fur trapper named Lussier.

When reading that name several years earlier, the French teenager had jumped to her feet. It was so similar to Lhuissier, her own last name! Could there be a distant relationship between herself and the nineteenth century Canadian who had settled in the Willamette Valley? While reflecting on her far-fetched idea, Catherine had heard her mother call for help to prepare dinner. She had quickly put the book back in its place and rushed to the kitchen. Her plan was to return to the bibliothèque as soon as possible in order to examine the records of her father’s family.

The next day, she hurried home from school and went straight to her hiding place in the house. From a drawer, she pulled out the genealogical chart constructed by her father. After carefully spreading out the huge paper document on the floor, she noticed a blank space in the upper right corner under the name of Jacques Lhuissier (also spelled Lussier in parentheses). A note next to his name mentioned that he was born in France around 1663 and had emigrated to Canada twenty years later. No information was provided about his descendants.

Catherine reflected for a moment. Could it be that Etienne Lussier, the individual mentioned in the book by Saint Amant, was a descendant of Jacques Lhuissier/Lussier who had emigrated from France in the late seventeenth century? If so, she would be very distantly related to Etienne Lussier and any of his descendants. A mystery to be solved!

From that moment, the tenacious French teenager was determined to go to the Pacific Northwest of America in order to solve that mystery. At the time, she didn’t know how to try to solve the problem through ancestry research. Anyway she also wanted to visit the places where Etienne Lussier had lived in the nineteenth century. Who knows? Maybe she would even find descendants of the French Canadian settler in that area.

For several years, Catherine kept imagining her trip to the Pacific Northwest of America. But how and when would she get there? Those were two questions she couldn’t answer in spite of her determination. However, a seed had been planted. She started creating a secret world for herself.

Based on her readings as well as her wild imagination, she gradually built a picture of the physical surroundings in which the early nineteenth-century French Canadian settlers and their families must have lived. Whenever her English class assignment was to write an essay on any topic, she would return to that theme, adding more and more details to her mental picture of the Pacific Northwest. When she was almost finished with high school, her British-born English teacher became curious.

Why do you write about Oregon so often?

Because I hope to go there one day.

Oh, it so happens that a brother of mine teaches Western history in Oregon. He is married to an American. I could put you in touch with them.

It is too early. My father would not let me go so far away just now. But please help me learn more about America.

A few days later, Catherine asked her English teacher if she could borrow a puzzle she had seen in the classroom. It represented a contemporary map of the United States and gave interesting information about each state. She found out that Oregon is known as the Beaver State, that the state tree is a Douglas fir, and that the state flower is the so-called Oregon grape. Above all, she was delighted to find out that Oregon’s motto is Alis Volat Propriis in Latin, which means, She flies with her own wings, so appropriate for an independent, driven French girl!

Reminiscing about the Oregon motto made Catherine return to her immediate reality on that day of late August 2013. There she was sitting on a plane bound for the States. So exciting! She started humming America, the Beautiful, eager to adapt to her new surroundings for the coming months. It