les Racettes

This past weekend offered an interesting opportunity for my family. Y’see, it was the most recent conclave of l’Association des familles Racette in St-Jean-Sur-Richelieu, Quebec. Those who know me well will notice a difference in the spelling of the last name, but we are, in fact, a part of the Racette clan that arrived in the French colonies somewhere before 1666. My father has gone to great pains to create a very elaborate and in-depth genealogy, in part, because I had claimed that no one in our family tree had ever done anything of note. So, given that stubbornness is apparently an inherited trait, he decided to prove me wrong. Along the way, he came across this particular association.

In retrospect, I’m pretty fortunate that he joined all those years ago because it led me to contact Sylvain, who has helped me immeasurably since I relocated to this fine city. Anyway, since I’m in Quebec now, it gave my father an excuse to pack up the car and head north to attend the bi-annual assembly. The day started with an hour long cruise along the Richelieu River, followed by a tour of historic Fort Lennox. The cruise itself didn’t hold much interest for me, since I’ve never been much of one for enjoying scenery (unless the scenery in question is in their 20s and wears halter tops), but the fort was cool. Since I’ve been taking a more active interest in history in recent years, visiting the site was right up my alley. After the tour, we got back on the boat and headed to the hotel for a nice dinner with the Association.

As it turns out, we were pretty much the only Anglophones there. Hardly a surprise, but considering there are American members of the Association, one would have thought there would be more people speaking English. I didn’t mind, but my father’s French is so rusty at this point that it bordered on embarrassing. One thing I did realise is that I don’t enjoy speaking to my mother in French. I guess it’s because I was raised in English, but I still find that interesting.
The Association, itself, is comprised mainly of middle-aged and older people. All very nice, but it’s certainly not a crowd that’ll be partying to the wee hours of the morning. Still, it was nice to be in a setting with a larger sense of family. I come from a rather small family, with very few cousins within driving distance, so it’s still a bizarre concept for me to be at a “family” function. I wonder how long the Association will survive, given the age of the membership. It’s unfortunate that the younger generation (and I’ll include myself amongst said generation for the time being) hasn’t taken much interest in family history or tradition. I think we have more to gain by participating than we realise. So here’s hoping that sometime in the near future they learn how to recruit some younger members! Til next time…