A Grandmother Remembers Grosse Ile

By Jeanette Masson,  Translated from French to English by Johanne L. Masse

Grosse Isle is sometimes referred to as Canada's Ellis Island. It operated as a quarantine facility for immigrants from 1832 to its closing in 1932. Since 1932 it has been under the management of Department of National Defense, Agriculture Canada, and most recently by Parks Canada since 1993.

Madame Masson lived on Grosse Ile for ten years before World War I when her father Gustave Vekeman was interpreter of European languages at the Quarantine Station. The book is a flowing account of life in an ordinary village on an extraordinary island. This was the image of a Canada that would first impress the immigrants obliged to stop on account of sickness on board their ships. Vekeman mentions the unveiling of the forty-foot tall Celtic Cross, a ceremony which she attended with her father.

Details:

183 Pages
6 x 9"
Published by Carraig Books Inc., Ste Foy, 1989
ISBN 978-0969080565 (paperback)