The past is never past
Last week I met a woman who said she was closely related to Marie Chouteau, which surprised me because Chouteau has been dead since 1813.
Marie Chouteau was an amazing women. Born in 1753, she lived most of her life as a farmer and businesswoman in St. Louis, when the city was still a village. A French-American in the then-colony of New France, which encompassed St. Louis and New Orleans, Chouteau shrewdly used existing laws adopted from the home country that allowed women to run their own businesses and benefit from liberal laws that protected widows from destitution if their husbands died first.
I talk about Chouteau in my lecture, FRONTIER FEMINISTS, and when I finished, a woman from Radnor, Pa. approached me and told me that SHE was a Chouteau, many generations descended from the founder of the family, Marie. She told me stories about her ancestor that had been passed down through the family. I was thrilled to see that history lives on, that the past is never dead.
Believe me, the past lives on.
About The Author
Jeff Heller
I'm a historical novelist who focuses on Colonial America, particularly the French-Canadians who settled North America in the 1600s and 1700s. My first novel, A FALSE DAWN, features Louise, a young wife and mother who must search for her son and her husband when the English invade their home in French-held Montreal and torch the city.