Page 9 - Fortier Family History

me, or maybe just “foreign” as there were no families I knew of in Wheaton that had names like that. I think we were the only Fortier family in Wheaton. My mom still had her French accent back then so the way she pronounced “Meshano” sounded French to my untrained ears, and as for Finlayson, well she just said it was Scottish. Most of all, however, I remember the few precious pictures she had of Doris and Agnes and when she showed them to me all I could do was imagine who they were and what their lives were like in Canada. Many decades later she told me that when I was little and she showed me the pictures of Doris I asked her why she was darker, like a Mexican, and that was probably the first time she told me that Doris and Agnes were “Indian.” She did not know what “tribe” though, and I always thought that was odd, that my dad did not tell her and that he never talked about it. Of course, now we are aware of the social and racial circumstances from that era that explains the motive for hiding one’s ethnic identity. Anti-Indian racism was so rampant (and still is in many rural parts of Canada) back then that the mixed ancestry Caucasian/Native people who could socially “pass for white” did so in order to escape that racism. As a young boy who was already experiencing a growing fascination with all things Canada and French Canadian, as well as a percolating obsession over my father’s premature and untimley death on my first birthday; and then to learn quite young of our “Indian” heritage, well that was just the icing on the cake. It left a lasting and lifelong impression on me. I still have very strong memories of thinking about these things as a young boy, and deep down the basis of those memories was the separation of our family from our roots in Canada, both Quebec and Ontario. Growing up in the Chicago suburb of Wheaton, a mostly white, conservative, middle class town (we lived on the poor side of town, literally with the railroad tracks right behind our house) we spent our summers getting “tan” and boasting of our Indian heritage to our new friends, although we did not know anything about the culture nor even what ”tribe” our Native heritage was associated with. That didn’t matter at the time though. We played hockey and we watched the Montreal Canadiens play the famed Bobby Hull, Stan Makita, Tony Esposito era Chicago Back Hawks in the Stanley Cup Playoffs season after season it seemed, (actually just twice in 1973 and 1975). Nonetheless, we were proud of our Canadian roots and the lure of Canada was firmly planted in my mind at a very young age. By the 1980s we had pretty much lost touch with our relatives in Canada. My mom’s parents passed away in the 1970s. Po-Po died first in 1970. I remember the last time we saw him in Wheaton and I remember combing his thick dark hair in the kitchen. Mo-Mo died in 1976 of cancer. I remember the last time she came to visit. She slept in our bedroom and from my bunk bed I watched the red glow of her cigarette burn in the middle of the night followed by fits of coughing. My mom’s only sibling, Lauretta died at age 19 when my mom was only 9 years old. She’s buried in Hornepayne, Ontario. Before our Bigaouette grandparents passed away my siblings Robert and Debbie got to travel to Montreal and visit them. In 1973 my oldest brothers Richard and Robert got to go to Nipigon and visit grandpa Ed Fortier and our aunts and uncles. David and I never got the chance to visit up there and over the years the Christmas cards and occasional letters from our relatives in Nipigon ceased. But, the thought of going to Canada to meet them never completely faded away and the birth of our son Jimmy in 1993 got me thinking once again about returning to Canada to see my relatives there for the first time since I was 2 years-old. The idea of contacting them came up when Ellen and I brought Jimmy to Wheaton for the first time during Christmas, 1993. That led to a conversation with my siblings about contacting our relatives in Nipigon and that’s what I did when I got home. I will never forget what grandpa Ed said when I asked him if his son was Walter. He answered “Walter’s been dead 30 years now.” Then, when I told him I was Walter’s son. He replied, “Richie?” and I had to disappoint him and tell him no,