This post was revised and expanded on March 30, 2018.

I have spent the last six years researching and writing about the five women in my family tree who were mentally ill and committed to state hospitals.  Along the way, I learned that they were descended from French-Canadians who immigrated to the U.S. in the late nineteenth century.  Throughout the preceding fifty-five years of my life, I knew very little about my Quebecois heritage.

The Quinebaug Mill in Danielson, Connecticut is where several of my French-Canadian ancestors worked, after leaving their Quebec villages. These photos, from the collections of the Killingly Historical and Genealogical Society, offered me a window into what my great-grandparents’ working lives were like.
Continue reading From Quebec to Connecticut →