ACGS is thrilled to be working with Paula Grandpre Wood
for the Summer 2024 Webinar!
Paula Grandpre Wood’s presentation will be
What I Learned About the Ceinture Flechee and My Ancestral Heritage
Paula’s book invites readers to walk in the steps of real people with real joys and terrible heartache as they make the fateful decision to leave behind everything they knew in La Rochelle France and begin life anew in New France. After serving indentureships, they began families, and some of her ancestors were caught up in the Acadian Dispersal. In the more recent past her ancestors immigrated once again, this time to the U.S. Through genealogical research of Paula’s ancestors that was gifted to her by a family member, she learned the bare facts of the many generations of her forbears’ lives. One day these ancestors began speaking to her heart. She responded by delving into the broader story of the times they lived through. She began writing a series of letters to specific grandparents, asking them unanswerable questions and telling them how she longed to know them better.
Her family’s Ceinture Fléchée (Arrow Sash) has been passed down through six generations. The Sash binds the various parts of Paula’s story into a coherent whole. Undertaking a quest to bring the family’s heirloom to each ancestor’s grave, she discovered one ancestor after the next. With each discovery, she wrapped the tombstones with the family’s Sash. While learning and then writing about her 9x grandparents she walked the Long Trail in Vermont, discovering parts of herself she had never known existed. Along with her growing sense of closeness with these ancestors, she found her way back to the Catholic Church. Every step of her journey, she knew her ancestors were praying for her.
Join us on August 10, 2024 at 4 pm (ET)
To Register please Click Here: Webinar Registration
Deadline to Register is August 3, 2024
About the Presenter: Paula Grandpre Wood
Paula Grandpre Wood is an author, physical therapist, wife and a person who heard the call of her ancestors! Paula was born in Pawtucket, RI close to the train station where her De Grandpre ancestors arrived from Quebec. Her family lived in Central Falls, RI in a tenement house, as her father’s family had when they immigrated to the United States. She became “The Girl from Central Falls,” not to be confused with the actress Viola Davis, who also grew up there. North Central Massachusetts is where Paula lives with her husband Michael and their three energetic dogs. The dogs get her outside in every kind of weather where they can run free.