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President's Message When I look back on my two years as your President, I am amazed at how much we have accomplished as a Society. In September 2004, the archdiocese of Boston closed St. Joseph's Church in Waltham, MA The "French church" where Acadians attended for years was gone. My own grandparents and their families were members of that parish for over 80 years. At our annual meeting in October of 2004, my cousin Judy Aucoin Olson and I were approached by former parishioners Lucien Bernard and Rita Arsenault about us contacting the archdiocese to see if we could save some plaques and the "Ave Maris Stella" statue, (Notre Dame de l' Assomption) that stood in front of the church and rectory. They told us other people had tried to contact the archdiocese with no success. Judy wrote to the arch-diocese, but got no reply. So in February, I called and was referred to the Office of Worship. A friend of mine during my high school years had later become a priest, and had recently been transferred to the Chancery. Imagine my surprise when I recognized his voice on their answering machine. He contacted me and told me that Kathleen Heck, a special assistant to the archbishop, would work on the request with me. We prevailed and were granted the plaques. Meanwhile, we were contacted by the Société Nationale de l'Acadie about a 250th Anniversary Monument of the Acadian Upheaval that they wanted our Society to help erect in Boston. I called the City of Boston to find out the proper office that would help us locate land for the monument. While they had me on "hold", I remembered the huge Acadian Flag I had seen flying over Citadel Hill in Halifax on August 15th, and was wishing we could do that somewhere in Boston someday! I recalled the challenge put forth by the Directors of the Congrès Mondial Acadian 2009 to enlighten the people of North America who are not Acadians about our History and Culture. After this telephone call, I contacted the maintenance department, and got the "OK" to fly our Flag over Boston City Hall Plaza on July 28, 2005, in observance of the First Annual Commemoration of the Great Deportation, set forth by Queen Elizabeth's 2003 Proclamation. When I notified our ACS Board that we had a permit to fly the flag, they decided that the Society should hold a ceremony along with raising the Flag, and invite officials from Canada and the United States. We were honored to have the acting Consul General of Canada, Michel Tetu, State Rep. Emile Goguen, and the mayor of Waltham, Jeannette McCarthy (the first woman and Acadian to be elected mayor of Waltham), join us for this historic day. What a thrill it was to be one of over one hundred Acadians watching our flag fly over the plaza, while we listened to Lina Boudreau's version of our National Anthem "Ave Maris Stella". It is a day no one there will ever forget! Not only did the flag fly that day, but it remained there for one week! Along about this time, through negotiations, we were able to obtain the statue and get it moved to Cavalry Cemetery in Waltham, MA, with the help of its superintendent, Ken Richardson. We were able to dedicate and bless the statue in a special Mass, as reported in the February issue of "Le Réveil Acadien" In November, because of the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina and the sound financial status of our Society, we were able to donate $540 to Mr. Warren Perrin to help house victims of the storm at the Acadian Museum in Erath, Louisiana, as well as help in the clean-up of the Museum. Erath was the site of the LeBlanc Family Reunion at the 1999 Congrés of Canada. In July of 2006, I was contacted by an author and researcher of "The Evangeline Story", Dr. Francoise Paradis, concerning the history of two statues at a church called "Our Lady of L'Assumption" in Chelsea, MA. She had been encouraged to call us by a friend of the Society, Dick Thibodeau, who had heard of the work we had done to acquire the Maris Stella Statue in Waltham, and he thought we could help her. One of our researchers, past president Dennis Bourdreau, informed us that La Société l' Assomption had donated the statues, because a group of Acadians, mostly from Prince Edward Island, had helped the archdiocese found the parish, which had closed in 1999. We again contacted the archdiocese, and they got in touch with the present owner of that church and he agreed to give the statues back. I'm proud to point out that because of the integrity of the Society in their eyes, they were willing to release these statues to us, knowing they would be treated with the utmost respect and care that a blessed location would be found for them, such as a church or cemetery. Dr. Paradis was familiar with the Acadian Village in Van Buren, Maine, and knew they had a blessed chapel. The Society was given the statues on August 10, 2006, one of the Blessed Mother and the other of Evangeline. We then arranged to have them transported to the Acadian Village by Dr. Paradis and Dick Thibodeau the very next day! They are now situated in front of the chapel, and the statue of Evangeline has been placed so that she is looking toward the St. John River Valley, where so many Acadians traveled and arrived to settle after the Deportation.
This past
summer, we also sent a congratulatory letter to the Acadian appointed to the important post of
Consul General for the Canadian Government in
Boston, the Hon. Neil LeBlanc. We invited him
to our Annual Meeting in October, and he accepted.
We were able to mention some of the work we have
been doing to promote our Culture here in New
England, and he assured us that we could count on
his help in our endeavors. In closing, I hope that these two years will be remembered as a time when the Society was contacted and worked with other groups and held events to educate ourselves and the general public about Acadian History and Culture. I thank you for letting me serve you as a President of the ACS, and for the help I received from the board of directors. I wish to congratulate our new president, Lucille Langlois, and I assure her that I will help her in any way that I can. Lucille has been active in our Society since its inception in various offices and duties, and I know she will be a fine leader. Bruce W. Caissie |
