THE SINGING BRIDGE

The Singing Bridge is a remembrance of and paean to my mill town upbringing in Manchester, NH in the 1960s. The period was a fraught one for Franco Americans, whose forebears had come to the United States intending to maintain their culture among les Anglais, the English-speaking citizens of their new land. Starting in the 1830s, but drastically accelerating in the 1880s, Québecois streamed by the tens of thousands to America, driven out by failing farms and poverty. By the post-WWII period, their descendants had been rubbing shoulders with non-French and non-Catholics, and the former taboos against assimilation were breaking down. By the 1960s, when I grew up, ethnic and Catholic culture were under threat from assimilation as well as new Church practices introduced by Vatican II. Born with a foot in each world, I observed the tumult from the inside. The elapsing of decades has given me the luxury to take the longer view, letting me appreciate much of what went unnoticed or unappreciated at the time. There was much that was beautiful and even marvelous in my old mill town. In this book, I hope to share that with you.

Songs, recipes and photos from THE SINGING BRIDGE.