By Greg Davis
Taken from the FRANKLIN JOURNAL  Friday June 30, 2000

Susan Gagnon James has turned up a lot of local history

FARMINGTON-- Susan Gagnon James always knew she had Franco-American roots on the maternal and paternal sides of her family, but noted she had set it aside.
 "I separated myself from my own cultural heritage as I assimilated myself into the community", she explained.
 James was a medical receptionist for 20 years before she opened Cobweb Antiques in Farmington.  She moved from the Chisholm village of Jay, a center of the French-Canadian population in this region.
 She recently joined Foothills Arts and participated in its successful Ma Bean storytelling production as the assistant director.
 This helped give me a chance to be part of the community for the first time since childhood", James said.  It also heightened her interest in finding out more about her Acadian roots.
 She traveled to Summerside, Prince Edward Island, gathering information on great-grandparents Amos and Ester Doucette Gallant, and met her father's first cousin for the first time.  He shared some genealogical information, and James found that her great grandfather spent a long time out to sea on merchant vessels.
 "I am still gathering information.  I'd like to know what he did on the merchant ships.  I'm told he may have had some connection to the Russian Revolution," she said.  "This all fascinates me".
 In her research. she had turned up many details of Franco-American life in the Farmington-Jay areas.
 For instance, James noted that Quebec Street in Farmington was so named because the residents moved there from Quebec, Canada.
 "I've found the Acadian families were hard working, lived when times were tough, struggling with enormous families.  My grandmother and father each were one of 10 children," James said.
 She located her father's birth announcement in a 1924 copy of the Livermore Falls Advertiser, finding that he was a 12-pound baby.
 She has accumulated books on Acadian heritage took a Franco-American studies course at the University of Maine at Orono through [the Franco-American Center taught by] Rhea Cote Robbins, the author of Wednesday's Child.  This course focused on the women and cultural heritage, from their departure from France to their relocation in the Maritimes, Quebec and Maine.
 This helped me to understand what occurred and to be exposed to literary works.  Before, I had difficulty interpreting and translating."
 Through her research, James has become a Franco-American advocate, she said. "I realized the "sterility" of Franklin County.  The cultural awareness isn't here," she said.
 As a result of a proposal to University of Maine at Farmington, Ben Levine, a filmmaker who films Franco-American history, came to the university and shared a film of people he had interviewed and then returned 20 years later to see where they are in their lives.
 The discussion that followed brought out discussion from Jay-area residents about the discrimination and prejudice they faced as Franco-Americans growing up in the 1950's.
 "I joined UMF's diversity committee and am supporting the introduction of Franco-American studies here, so that the area's high percentage of Franco-American's have a cultural identity that is more available."
 Her great grandparents, Charles and Claudia Soucy Ouellette, came from Canada separately to work in the mills in Lewiston, and were married in 1890.  They moved to the French section of Canton, and settled in the similar Chisholm community in Jay, where they built a home in 1898.
 James has made several trips to the library and city hall in Lewiston for information to piece together her family tree.
 She found an 1881 mission pre-ceded St. Rose of Lima Church, with priests visiting local homes to deliver the Mass.
 Ely Duguay of Jay has assisted her effort.  He has been collecting an archive of French-Canadian history for over 50 years.
 "Farmington was more prosperous, and people would come here a farm laborers.  It is becoming a story," James said.
 She is not ruling out a book coming out of her efforts.  She noted a Dr. Croteau delivered many of the French babies around 1910.  She is also seeking oral history concerning paper mill workers.
 "There is a rich and detailed history, but a lot of it has not been documented," James said.  "I came across the 1893 attendance record of the Otis Falls Grammar School, and think there are people around who would like to know their relatives went there".
 James does some freelance writing for Country Collectibles magazine, recently publishing the article, "A to Z to Collecting China Patterns."
 She hopes local families will come forward with heir own family's oral histories to share with her.
 "There is a story here, and it seems to have a life of it own," James stressed.
  To share your own French heritage with Susan Gagnon James, call her at 778-9744 or e@mail sjames@somtel.com.