[tapping] [dishes clinking] [silence] Man 1: My grandmother spoke Greek, acted like a Greek woman, [chuckles] and was very embraced by my Greek family, so as far as I knew growing up, she was Greek.

♪♪ When I read her obituary and saw that she had a French-Canadian last name, I thought it was a misprint.

I thought actually I was reading the wrong obituary, and, uh, I had to recheck it again until I realized that her last name was Liberty.

That was an immediate shock to me because as far as I knew, she was Greek.

Nobody really knew that she's French Canadian.

You know, I need to know, I need to know about that side of the family a-and, and the circumstances around why she became so separate from her family.

I think it'll help me better understand not only relationships in my family, but the relationship with me and my father.

Uh, maybe that'll help to explain it.

You know, maybe we're just a family that's doomed to have bad relationships with each other.

♪♪ - Hello, I’m Lise Simms, and each week on our show, we bring you the story of someone who for one reason or another wants to get in touch with a family member, or an entire generation of their family tree.

And we help them do just that.

We're an ongoing project dedicated to connecting people across generations and today that person is Nick Pitarys.

Welcome, Nick.

Nick: Thank you.

Lise: You made a really powerful statement, "Maybe we're just a family that's doomed to have bad relationships."

Tell me about those relationships.

- Um, well, before I found out about the relationship between my grandmother and her parents, and that set off the curiosity, um, my father and I haven't had a, uh, relationship with each other for quite some time.

Um, he moved away, uh, to New York when I was about 12 years old, and to him, uh, career was much more important.

Uh, he was working with a, uh, great company and started working there about a week before I was born.

So, uh, really honestly, uh, career became most important, especially since he was, uh, divorced from my mom and really didn't have that, you know, family-in-the-house connection with me.

Um, my father also didn't really have that great a relationship with his parents either, um, once he moved away.

And it just made me wonder, is this just his doing, or is this how the family is?

How this side of the family is.

And it made me a lot more curious especially when I went to find out about Gertrude and, and, and her parents, um, what the circumstances are.

It, it really, it really makes you, uh, wonder, like I said, if you're a family that's just doomed to have these bad relationships just because it's easier to have, you know, that type of family relationship or, uh, was it just one individual who just doesn't know how to have a family properly.

Lise: And you're a father yourself.

- Yes, I am.

- Do you have concerns about carrying it into the next generation?

Nick: I did until, um, till I realized, uh, that the things that I learned from him taught me what not to do with my son, taught me how to be a better dad, uh, taught me to, um, do the exact opposite.

You know, career is-- Lise: When in doubt.

- Ye-- exactly.

Career is great and all, but family is most important.

Lise: I wanna get back to your grandmother, Gertrude, who you mentioned here and also in the opening.

What role did she play in your life?

Nick: Oh, she was, um, her and my grandfather were my-- was my father basically.

Uh, they, they picked up the slack for him.

Um, she was an amazing woman.

She was very strong, uh, mentally, emotionally.

A typical Greek woman.

Cooked constantly, uh, made the food for the church all the time, for all the events.

She was a devout Red Sox fan, uh, to the point where I would call her for score updates, uh, while I lived in Arizona and she would, oh Nicky, the Red Sox are losing again, and blah, blah, blah, so.

Lise: You knew a little bit at the beginning of this journey of yours about a possible disconnection that Gertrude had from her own family.

Is that right?

Nick: Right, right.

Um, the rumor has always been that, uh, her parents, uh, disconnected with her because she was dating and married to my Greek, uh, grandfather.

And, um, nobody ever wanted to talk about that.

My father and my uncle, uh, who are my two, you know, immediate family members on that side, never wanted to discuss it, never really, um, told me what the c-- what the circumstances were and to this day, still didn't wanna discuss it.

Lise: Hm.

So, where your journey starts here is talking about your relationship with your father, wanting to change this family history, learn more about it in hopes of improving it.

Food plays a big part of your life.

Nick: It does.

- Because you’re Greek, or because you're a baker?

[laughs] - Uh, because of the Greek and Italian heritage.

Um, I've been around food and people making food, especially my grandparents and, and aunts and uncles my entire life, so, um, just to watch them make food seemed like, you know, watching them breathe.

Lise: Mmm.

What a great line.

- Yeah.

Lise: But I wanna start taking a look at your journey into your history as you discuss your relationship with your father.

Nick: Great.

- Let's watch.

♪♪ [dish rattling] Nick: Sometimes career is more important to people than family.

And sometimes people, depending on who they are, forget, uh, that family is the most important thing.

And, uh, unfortunately, in this situation, he chose career, uh, over his son.

And, uh, while that's not really... not really the way I would have wanted it, uh, it helped me to learn a lot.

It helped me to learn that, uh, being a family is more important, uh, in the long run than, than a career would be or, uh, anything else is.

So, yeah, not having that relationship with my father actually has taught me a lot.

I'm not upset at him for it.

I don't resent him for it.

I just am indifferent to it.

And he to me.

So, we're just separate people living separate lives, so it doesn't really-- it doesn't really bother me at all.

[somber music] ♪♪ [music fades] [light-hearted music] ♪♪ Lise: Nick has ordered his grandmother Gertrude's marriage certificate.

He hopes it will contain some clue about the rift between Gertrude and her parents.

- He was a shoe worker, or she was?

Nick: He-- they both were.

Woman 1: Oh wow, look at that.

Nick: That's how they must have met.

Reverend Papavasilou is who married Gertrude and Thomas, my grandparents.

Gertrude's father, Joseph, had already passed and he was a farmer in Canada.

Wow.

I, uh, I think I’m gonna have to go to New Hampshire and try to figure this out.

♪♪ I am really excited to go back to Nashua to find out more about her life and find out more about maybe the earlier parts of her life, especially in how it lead to her disconnecting from the French-Canadian side and just converting to Greek.

- Nick has heard that Gertrude's French-Canadian parents cut her off from the family when she married a Greek man and that this is why Gertrude abandoned her French-Canadian heritage and remade herself into a Greek.

Nick wants to know if this story is true and if it is, learn the details of the separation.

♪♪ [birds chirping] Nick begins his trip to Nashua by visiting the public library, where he's looking at the 1939 city directories.

Nick: I'm trying to find the name of the Reverend Papavasilou to try to find out where they got married, Gertrude and Thomas.

There we are.

He was a pastor at the Church of Annunciation in Nashua.

So, I can look it up by business.

Church of the Annunciation.

Greek Orthodox church, 52 Ash Street.

I know this church and, um, it'll be interesting to go back and, and speak with people at the church because possibly they remember or maybe they remember the circumstances surrounding it.

That's a great place to start.

I'm excited.

And there it is.

♪♪ And wow.

It's a Baptist church now.

Huh.

It's changed over the years.

[distant clattering] Wow.

It's been a long time since I’ve been back here.

Woman 2: How are you?

Nick: I'm Nick.

Woman 2: Good morning, good morning.

Nick: Nice to meet you.

Woman 2: Nice meeting you.

Nice meeting you.

Nick: Well, I'm here because I'm trying to find out a little bit more about my grandmother, Gertrude.

- Uh-huh.

- And, uh, the family, our Pitarys family, lived over here on Vine Street-- - Oh, okay.

- --and we'd spend a lot of time here at this church.

- Yes.

- And they were married here I just found out, it's the first time I found that out.

- Wonderful.

- In 1939.

- Uh-huh.

I think this was the Church of the Annunciation.

Nick: Yes, it was.

Woman 2: Uh, as you can probably tell, the architect is still the same-- Nick: Yes.

Woman 2: --but it is no longer-- the Greek Orthodox church is on the other side of town.

I think it's, uh, Exit 5.

Uh, it's a beautiful church, but the last Greek priest that was here is still alive and he's there.

He's, he's not the pastor as I would call it, but.

Nick: Do you know of this reverend?

Woman 2: Yeah, he's probably still at St., St. Philip's, probably retired.

Nick: Mm-hm.

- There was a time when he came over with the children-- - Right.

- --and brought them here to see the building to let them know what their heritage was.

- Oh, fantastic.

Woman 2: That was just very touching.

Nick: Yeah.

She didn't have much information on the reverend that married my grandparents, Gertrude and Thomas, but, uh, she thinks maybe he's over at St. Philip's church, pretty much the last remaining Greek Orthodox church here in Nashua, so I think my journey's gonna take us there to find out more information.

Man 2: Hello.

Nick: Hi.

How are you?

- How are you?

- I'm looking for Reverend Papavasilou.

- Um, you know, I’ve never met him.

- Oh.

- But he passed away a long time ago.

- Oh... - Yeah.

- Okay.

Um, I’m trying to find out more information about my grandmother and grandfather-- - Yeah.

- --who were married at Church of the Annunciation.

- Well, I’m, I'm, I'm Father Tom.

- Nick Pitarys.

- Nice, nice to meet you.

- Very nice to meet you.

- Oh Pitarys, common name here.

- Yes.

- Yeah, yeah.

- [laughs] - Who, who is your grandmother?

- My grandmother was Gertrude Pitarys-- - Ahhh.

- --married to Thomas.

- Gertie.

- Yes.

- My sweet Gertie.

- [laughs] - Come on in, come on in.

- Thank you very much.

Father Tom: So what type of information do you want to find out about Gertrude?

- Well I know when they were married, uh, in 1939, there's been a complete disconnect between the French-Canadian side of the family that Gertrude was and, um, the Greek side.

Why do you think it is that she became such a big part of the Greek Orthodox church considering that she was French Canadian and really had no ties to the Greek side other than marrying my grandfather?

You think that was it?

- Well, I think part of it is.

But from knowing your grandmother-- Nick: Mm-hm.

Father Tom: --um, there were problems on both sides.

And I think your grandmother actually found solace in the church.

Nick: Mm.

- Come with me.

Right around here is where your grandmother would come and sit-- Nick: Oh wow.

Father Tom: --and pray.

As I said earlier, she had a little problem from her family’s side-- Nick: Mm-hm.

Father Tom: --and also from the Pitarys side too, trying to find that, that balance in life, you know, love kind of takes you some places where you don't always intend to go.

To meet somebody, to fall in love with somebody, and to marry somebody outside of your culture was a hard thing for people to accept and, and a lot of times families would cut them off-- Nick: Mm.

Father Tom: --which I think is what happened on your mother's side.

- It seems to have, yeah.

- Yeah, the Liberty side.

The Pitarys side took a while for them to kinda warm up to her.

- Really?

- Yeah, that's probably why she became such a good cook, or-- and she learned the language so well.

- Right.

- Um, because she wanted to become accepted and to be accepted, and to, to be part of the family.

And eventually she did, and I was always amazed at her, her, her knowledge of the language, um, her, her cooking skills.

And, and it was actually a long while before I realized that she was non-Ortho-- non, non-Greek, but.

Nick: [laughs] You'd mentioned the cooking, how she'd learned to do Greek cooking.

What, what types of things did she, did she make, traditional Greek food, or?

Father Tom: Her spanakopita, pastitsio, the lamb briami were all, you know, it was all perfectly done.

Nick: Hm.

- She just had that knack and she was able to pick up the recipes probably from your great-grandmother, which actually was a, a nice bridge for her-- Nick: Hm.

Father Tom: --because Greek women don't like giving their recipes out.

Nick: Mm-hm.

- So, for her mother-in-law-- Nick: Mm-hm.

Father Tom: --to give her a recipe meant that she was accepted.

Nick: Mm.

- Yeah, so for her to make the spanakopita, for her to make the, the [indistinct] or whatever the, the food might be-- Nick: Right.

Father Tom: --that kind of revealed that sense of acceptance.

Nick: That-that's really interesting to hear, because that to me seems like the moment when she was accepted.

Food is, is very prevalent.

It plays a major role in passing down tradition and history and it sounds to me like her tradition was molded by, you know, this, this teaching of how to make s-- particular Greek food.

And, uh, that's very important to me because I, to this day, use food to, to remember, uh, the roots of my family.

Father Tom: Yeah, food is always, you know, for Greeks, it's always an important conversation part.

I don't think people can really have a conversation as a Greek without having something to eat.

Nick: Hm.

I feel a little bit more, I guess happy would be the best word, just finding out a little bit more about her and how she became part of the family is helpful to, to understanding not only what she went through, but the strain in relationships within the Pitarys family.

And, uh, she found this as a place of solace and I think I’d, uh, I wanna see her side.

I know where the Pitarys family is buried and, uh, I think as emotional as it will be, um, I think it's probably about time to go, go see it.

♪♪ It's a lot tougher to come here than I thought it was gonna be.

I feel happy that she's where the Pitarys's are.

Um, you know, knowing that she embraced the family and the culture so much and, uh, became such a big part of it, it's good to know she's with the people who really loved her the most.

Gertrude and Thomas cared about me more than anybody on this planet except my mother.

You know, they were my father basically.

They took care of me; they did the things that a parent would do for a child.

[emotional] They helped me to understand the importance of being a parent and how important it is to, to raise my child with unwavering love and support and to always be there.

♪♪ And, uh, you know, those are lessons I’m never gonna forget.

And those are lessons that I’ll pass on to my son.

♪♪ [exhales] ♪♪ [keys clicking] Lise: Nick is ready to extend his pedigree and learn about Gertrude's French-Canadian ancestors.

He begins by using the online U.S. Census collection to find the names of Gertrude's parents.

Nick: The information that's listed on here has Gertrude born to Parmelia and Joseph Liberty.

Joseph was born in Canada.

Uh, he was six years old when he came from Canada.

So, I would like to know who brought him over here [laughing] at six years old from Canada.

Lise: The census shows that Joseph came to the United States from Canada in 1890 with his father, Victor, a French-Canadian farmer.

Victor had 13 children.

Most were listed as farmers.

Nick: The fact that they were all farmers tells me that they probably owned a very large farm in order to have the entire family working there.

And since it was apparently such a big production that there are people who know of the family.

Lise: A search for the name Victor Liberty brings up the next clue.

- Isn't this interesting?

I have, uh, something written here that I found online by Carol Lindsey back in 1999 and she's looking conne-- for connections to a family tree specifically where they're named LaLiberte.

And spelt the traditional way.

And according to what I’m reading here, she has information about Victor LaLiberte, born in 9-- in 1847 and I would really like to get ahold of Carol Lindsey and find out if we're related, and I think the easiest way to do that would be to send Carol an email and see what we find out.

Lise: Victor Liberty, or LaLiberté as he was called in French, came from Acton Vale, Québec to New England at a time when many French-Canadian farmers were moving to the United States.

While Nick is waiting for a response from Carol, he decides to travel to French Canada, where he hopes to find more information on the LaLibertés.

- I just got an email from Carol Lindsey from last night and, uh, as a matter of fact we are related, by marriage, but we are related.

Um, she says she attached some information about the family, she'd like the opportunity to speak with me more, uh, she'd like to do, uh, either a video chat or meet in person.

Um, she sent me an attachment, so, I don't know what it is here, but I think we need to get somewhere so we can print this off and take a look at it.

♪♪ Lise: Nick makes a quick stop to print off the email and attachment that Carol Lindsey has sent him.

The attachment contains information and an old photo of Victor LaLiberté.

Nick: And it says, "Grandpa Victor LaLiberte told me "when he was growing up "that he had only one pair of woolen trousers "for all the boys in his family.

"It was made "so that it was loose on some of the boys "and tight on some of the others.

"They would take turns wearing the trousers "on special occasions like attending church "whenever the priest would come to their parish.

"They all wore homespun overalls "made from flax that they grew "and spun into a thread and wove themselves on a homemade loom."

They weren't educated or lived far apart from each other.

"They couldn't read or write "and had no means of transportation, so they all drifted apart."

So, the things that jump out at me here are they considered special occasions attending church.

They were very handy, making their own clothing as well as farming.

These were very self-sufficient people.

Kinda sets off a little light in my head because I am a very self-sufficient person as well, so I can see where I might get it.

Apparently, they didn't-- they weren't very literate so really all they had to go on was culture and tradition and religion, and that made a lot of the decisions for them, including decisions all the way down to my grandmother, Gertrude, whereas I’m more independent and make more dec-- make decisions that suit me more than it does tradition or culture or history.

I'd like to see the other side, I’d like to see the opposite of me and see how these people lived and, and really what they believed in.

♪♪ Lise: Nick is visiting the historic Québécois village in Drummondville, Québec.

The village is a recreation of the early French-Canadian lifestyle that Nick's ancestors would have experienced before immigrating to the United States.

Nick is meeting with village guide Simon Bourgault.

♪♪ - [speaking French] Nick: Did most of them farm?

Nick: Oh.

Nick: Mm-hm.

- Right.

- Oh, okay.

Nick: Mm-hm.

Nick: Mm-hm.

Nick: Mm-hm.

- Oh!

- Okay?

- Uh-huh.

Nick: Wow.

♪♪ Nick: So, they lived in a house like this, but what did they eat?

Nick: Hm.

Nick: Mm-hm.

Nick: Ah, oui.

♪♪ Nick: It's tough to put yourself in their shoes, but being able to walk through here and being able to see what they went through and knowing what they ate and knowing how they lived makes it a lot easier for me to, to understand.

I guess that's the best way to put it.

I understand.

They ate a lot of soup, apparently.

Uh, bean soup, uh, pea soup, a lot of bread, these were the type of things that would fill up a family for the day, you know, and allow them to go out and farm and they wouldn't have to worry about spending a tremendous amount of money or resource of making dinner.

You know, soup with beans or bread was very easy to make, and it filled you up.

Um, it's going to be a little bit more difficult for me to try to incorporate the types of things that they ate here into my traditional cooking only because I am not a huge fan of beans or pea soup.

[laughs] ♪♪ Lise: Though repelled by the notation of eating peas, Nick wants to learn to make the soup that his ancestors ate.

He's meeting with Carmelle Bonetto and Caroline Dumas at SoupeSoup, a restaurant in Montreal.

♪♪ Nick: The basis of, of the soup I guess that we're going to make is, is from a, a regional recipe from my great-great-grandfather.

Caroline: Exactly.

Carmelle: Well, I can give you a hint about the traditional yellow pea soup.

Nick: Hm.

Carmelle: It's a traditional dish in Québec.

- Okay.

And pea soup being yellow, you're not used to it usually green?

- It was yellow pea soup then and it was made with, uh, carrots, celery... uh, uh, what else?

Uh, carrots, celery.

- Has the recipe changed much from then?

- No, no.

- So it stays the same.

Caroline: It's a classic.

- Okay.

Caroline: And the, the-- you know in Québec we have the soupe Habitant.

Carmelle: On the can in French it would say soupe aux pois.

- Soupe aux pois.

Okay.

- On the, on the other side in English it would say, French-Canadian pea soup.

- Oh.

Caroline: Oh yeah.

Carmelle: Later on in the 19th century, uh, the Anglophones would call the French-Canadians pea soup.

- [laughing] Oh, sure.

- Because, because the, uh, hard labor men would work all day and their, their soup, the, uh, pea soup was their main meal.

Nick: Right.

Caroline: Yeah.

Nick: Am I, uh, cutting these right?

Do you want these in quarters or?

Carmelle: I would have liked them in quarters, but.

- Quarters?

No, I can do quarters.

- You know because we are very poor and we need that everybody has a little part of the carrots.

- To have more carrots as possible.

Nick: Oh, okay, okay.

Caroline: So, we're very, very poor.

Nick: So, the more carrots, the better.

You've got it.

Caroline: Yes.

Nick: I understand.

That, that makes total sense.

Caroline: Then we have 15 children, you know?

Carmelle: The Greeks and Romans... - The Greeks.

[laughs] - ...and Romans-- - That's me.

- --were cultivating the legume 500 years before Christ.

And so, uh, the vendors in the streets of Athens-- Nick: Right.

- --would be selling hot pea soup.

- Oh, really, in Greece?

- In Greece, in the ro-- the street of Athens.

- Well that's helpful because now, you know, I-I’m not-- I'll be honest, I’m not a huge fan of pea soup, but this a regional dish.

Caroline: [groans] - Once you taste mine.

- However, however, now that you've mentioned that there, there is a Greek element to it as well-- - [laughing] - --it ties in more with my family history, Italian, Greek, and, and French-Canadian.

- You know I’m very sure that if you put it a little, when you serve it-- Nick: Mm-hm.

- --you put a little extra of feta cheese, I’m sure.

- Oh, see, now, now you're speaking my language.

- And the mint, mint leaves.

Nick: Sure.

Caroline: Yes.

Nick: Yep.

♪♪ ♪♪ - Absolutely.

Nick: Well, um, I can see, you know, why he would eat-- Caroline: [laughs] - --a dish like this because it's, it's filling.

I can already tell how filling it is.

It's very thick, so.

Caroline: Yeah.

- I guess the goal was to fill you up so you could sleep.

Carmelle: You don't need anything else after that.

Nick: Right, right.

Carmelle: Perhaps a cheesecake?

- Right.

All: [laughing] ♪♪ Lise: Nick has scheduled a video chat with Carol Lindsey, the distant relative who sent him the information on Victor LaLiberté.

He hopes that Carol and her husband, Tony, will be able to help him extend his pedigree even further.

Nick: Hi there, Carol Lindsey-- - Hi.

Nick: --I presume.

Carol: Yes.

- How are you?

I'm Nick Pitarys, how nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you.

- How are you sir?

Tony: I'm Tony Lindsey.

Nick: Nice to meet you.

We must be related.

Carol: [laughs] Tony: That's what she tells me.

She tells me we're third cousins or something like that.

- That's fantastic.

That's great.

It's finally nice to be able to put some faces with names.

I think we should probably just dive right into it.

The information that I have up to is Victor.

But I really don't know anything about the family beyond Victor.

That's it.

That's as far as I’ve learned in the last few days.

Lise: Carol has the names of Nick's ancestors, starting with Victor and going back seven generations to Michel Hébert, who emigrated from France in the late 1600's.

Carol also knows the name of Michel's wife, Anne Galais.

Carol: We have something on her and I don't quite know what it means.

But, um, she was listed as le fille du roy which means daughter of the king.

- Yeah.

Carol: And I-I don't know, you know, I, I haven't really gotten into researching that that well.

- Really?

Carol: Um.

[laughs] Like I said I don't know what it means.

But, um, and I don't know if that's from France or where, but.

- Right.

Right.

Carol: Anyhow.

- Fantastic.

That's, that's, uh, that's great information.

That's great.

But hopefully yeah, hopefully we can go a little bit farther back and find out more about Anne Galais.

[laughs] It's exciting to know the first immigrants to come from France to Canada and especially since it was Anne Galais, the information that I have says that she possibly was a daughter of a king.

So, I’d like to find out more but it's very exciting to know that I may have that kind of blood in me.

To know that my family may have descended from royalty, uh, kind of makes me feel a little bit more special.

It makes me feel like the family that I came from was very important.

And for them to move to Canada and have very humble, uh, living, um, boy, that's-- it's just tough to understand how you could go from such royalty to such humble living.

I would love to learn more about Anne.

I would love to know if this is true, If she was actually les filles du roy and, uh, see if she actually was related to a king and which king.

There's a, uh, place over here, Les Filles du Roy, which is the same as, uh, what I have for daughters of the king.

I, uh, I think I need to check that out.

- Les Filles du Roy is a restaurant in old town Montreal owned by Gaétan Trottier.

- Anne Galais was le fille du roy.

- Le fille du roy.

- Daughter of the king.

Was that a literal trans-translation?

Was she actually a title?

Was that a actual daughter of a king or was that referring just in general to, to certain people?

- [laughs] Le-les filles du roy, you can see, uh, that's, uh, old French, huh?

R-O-Y.

And it-it's, uh, because those girls were sent by Louis XIV-- Nick: Mm-hm.

- --in the new colony of Canada.

- Okay.

- You know, in order to found families in Canada in the 17th century.

About 1,000 of them.

- Oh.

- Yes.

And, and they were not the daughters of the king really.

- Ah.

- But they were called so because, uh, their dowry was paid by Louis XIV.

- Okay.

- Okay?

Nick: So, one of the original women who came over, uh, on the dowry of the king to populate and, and explore.

- Exactly.

They were coming, uh, uh, precisely to get married and found families in order to have a real colonies.

That's why we have the ship there and then the colombe, the dove, in order to get married and then found families.

You know the, the rouet?

- Excellent, yes.

- [speaking French] - It's the um, the wheel.

The spinning wheel.

Gaétan: The spinning wheel.

Nick: Excellent.

Lise: In 1663, France's Canadian colony consisted of a mere 2,500 people, most of which were male.

The French government realized it needed to increase the colony's population in order to meet potential threats from neighboring Native Americans and English colonists.

King Louis XIV's solution was to sponsor the immigration and dowry of young, marriageable girls who would travel to the colony and marry immediately or soon after their arrival in Canada.

Nick: Maybe you can help me find out a little bit more about Anne Galais, whether she was actually one of the first, uh, to come over as, as a fille du roy or actually she was a daughter of the king.

- Okay, that's your genealogy.

- Yes.

- Michel Hébert and Anne Galais.

Let's find out.

Nick: Great.

- Let's, let's see here.

Come on.

Lise: Gaétan has called on the assistance of food anthropologist Nathalie Cooke to help Nick better understand Anne Galais's life.

- I think I’ve got something that will really interest you then.

- Excellent.

- Absolutely a surprise for you then.

Nick: Great.

Gaétan: Look in here what we find.

Anne Galais.

Nathalie: Oh yeah.

Gaétan: Anne Galet.

Nick: Oh wow.

- Was born in 1646 in the paris-- parish of St. Pierre, Île-de-France.

The daughter Pierre Galet and Louise Serre.

Nick: Ah, ah.

- That's exactly according to this document you have.

So she was really a filles du roy.

Nick: Wow.

- And she was here in Montreal, I mean, in the six-- 17th century.

Nick: Wow.

What, what is this book?

What-- - Well this book is precisely a kind of, uh, inventory about all the girls that were, uh, called les filles du roy.

Nathalie: She also comes from Gonesse, which was known for its bread.

It's, uh-- Nick: Oh, really?

- --a region of France that's very, very well known.

So she came having that background already-- Nick: Oh.

Nathalie: --so she was interested in baking-- Nick: Oh wow.

- --um, I expect.

And she also would have known the cherries, um, in the neighborhood as well which are very famous.

- Sure.

Nathalie: And we are actually talking in, in, uh, one of the best restaurants in Montreal at the moment, so I think you'll be hearing more about cooking and baking.

Nick: Wonderful.

Wonderful.

- And that's really where I come in because my interest is food history-- Nick: Oh excellent.

- --and culinary history in Canada so it’s, um-- my interest is really to do with what kinds of things they were eating-- Nick: Mm.

Nathalie: --at the time.

♪♪ - Meat pie, or tourtière, is one of the distinctive French-Canadian dishes that immigrants in Anne Galais' day brought with them to Canada.

Nathalie: This is if you were going to choose one iconic dish for Québec, tourtière would be it.

Meat pie would have been very typical of what your, um, your ancestors ate.

Nick: Mm-hm.

Nathalie: But there were some changes that have happened over the years.

You're a pie baker I hear.

Nick: Yes.

Nathalie: You're interested in pies?

Um, in actual fact, probably there wouldn't have been pork in the pie until about the 19th century.

Nick: Mm.

- Um, because essentially pigs were raised for the lard and for the fat, um, and so typically not for the meat.

Instead, there would have been different kinds of meat in the pie.

And in fact one of the things you would have found is something called a tourte, which in English is a carrier pigeon.

And between May and July they descended almost like, um, plagues in ancient Egypt.

Nick: [chuckles] - But it was, they were very, very easy to catch.

So if you put a little bit of seed on the snow-- Nick: Mm-hm.

- --and a net over the top, you could catch the tourte, and it was called the coming of the tourterelle.

Nick: That's wonderful.

- Is it lovely?

- It's um... - It looks fabulous.

- It's got so much flavor to it.

- And that's part of it too.

The meat obviously has changed over time in terms of the fat content of meat and so, um... - And what kind of meat is this in here?

- This is pork.

Gaétan: Pork.

Nathalie: Ground pork.

- I could see eating a slice of this and being completely full.

[laughs] - Exactly.

- Enough for you to last, you know, almost the day or even the evening.

Nathalie: That's right.

Nick: Oh, it's wonderful.

Nathalie: There's a recipe that dates back from 1600 B.C., it's a little bird pie.

- Wow.

- Um, and it is clearly a meat pie with little birds in it.

And so if you imagine the, the tourterelles, you know, in this pie, as a little bird pie-- Nick: Mm-hm.

- --you can see that kind of lineage from Mesopotamia through to modern-day Québec.

- Wow.

- And coming through some other pies as well.

Nick: Mm.

- Um, in England there were the battle pies which were the very, you know, the very exotic tall pies which by about the 18th century people were very nervous about because if you had an enormous pie with lots of different kinds of meat, you wanted to be sure that you weren't eating a kind of meat you didn't want to be eating.

Nick: Mm.

- So, there was, uh, much more comfort when the pies were a little bit more transparent and more available.

- Hey guys.

- Hey there.

Nathalie: Hi there.

- You enjoyed the tourtière?

Nick: Wonderful.

It was absolutely perfect.

- Nick I would love to show you how to make some if you wanna come down in the kitchen.

- Really?

- Yeah.

- Oh, fantastic.

- You interested?

Nick: Yes, absolutely.

- Good, good.

[rubbing] We'll get this going.

Nick: All right.

Man 3: [laughs] ♪♪ Nick: Since, uh, my family is, is Greek Italian and French Canadian, uh, we have our traditions.

We have our Italian foods, we have our Greek foods.

But we never have really anything French Canadian.

And, um, you know, just the, the herbiness of everything, it just reminds me so much of Canada.

♪♪ I-it's to me, food is, is, is part of life.

And you don't do much of anything unless it's over food.

Um, that's the Italian way, that's the Greek way, and apparently that's the French-Canadian way too.

A-and because of that, because of these people and all the wonderful people I met on this journey I really feel very connected to my French-Canadian heritage.

♪♪ - Oh, wow.

This is the even better than the one we just ate.

Man 3: [laughs] ♪♪ Lise: Nick is returning home to Mesa, Arizona.

Nick: We don't really, my family and I, have the time so much to sit and, and eat.

But when we have the opportunity to sit down and actually eat something, we feel like we're bringing the family back together.

You know, it's like a reconnection of the family.

Daddy learned how to make this up in Canada.

Do you know where Canada is?

- Um, in the country above us.

Nick: That's right!

In the country above us.

You're very good.

What's your favorite thing Daddy makes?

- Cheesecake.

Nick: Cheesecake.

[laughs] Well, Daddy's making something other than cheesecake this time.

Daddy's making something that goes back in our family for a long, long time.

Your great-great- great-grandfather used to eat this with his family.

He had 13 brothers and sisters.

You don't have any brothers and sisters, do you?

- It's only me.

- Yeah, could you imagine if you had 13?

And you know a lot of them were farmers.

They worked on a farm.

Do you ever-- - Look it, I’m peeling.

Nick: Would you like to be on a-- work on a farm?

Boy: Yeah.

Nick: Yeah?

- Be a farmer one day.

Nick: Yeah, would that be fun?

- Nom, nom, nom.

- Look sweetie, Daddy's making a tourtière.

A tourtière was what our family ate and what you and I are gonna make for our families.

Can you say tourtière?

- Today.

Nick: [laughs] Try again.

Tourtière.

- Tourtière.

Nick: Very good.

The dough that we're using here is Greek dough.

So, we're combining a lot of your family history together in one dish.

This is... Woman 1: Explain it to me.

- ...a yellow pea soup native to the area of Québec where my family came from.

[laughs] ♪♪ Nathalie: Did you have fun helping Daddy make the soup?

- Yeah.

♪♪ Woman 1: You ready?

- All right.

- Let's see.

Grab this side.

So now that you've found everything out do you think it was worth your time to, to track it down and does it set your mind at ease?

Does it make you feel better to know what you found out?

Nick: It does, but, um, I think I-I kinda feel like I’ve been jipped for a while.

Like, uh, I wasn't given this opportunity sooner.

And, uh, you know, I think I did the family a service by finding out more about our history.

♪♪ - You said that you felt bad because you wish you'd had this experience early.

Nick: Yes.

- What, what do you mean by that?

Nick: Um, it would have been nice to, to do this exploration while, uh, my grandmother was still alive.

And I could have bounced more information off of her and she could have, you know, given me as much as possible.

And to get it from the source would have been a lot easier than finding out from other relatives that, you know, misinformation that, that there wasn't this type of relationship specifically, uh, because of, of, of her joining the Greek culture.

You know, it would have been nice to just talk to her directly.

Lise: Sure.

- Yeah.

Lise: How has this changed your relationship with your dad?

Nick: Um, it hasn't.

- It hasn't.

- Nope, uh... - Do you feel like you have any hopes for that to come to terms with it or?

- No, and it's interesting that you ask me that because the, the time when I realized that there was no way to repair this relationship and that things, um, were just set adrift, uh, as they were was when I had gone to the hospital a few weeks before she passed.

Uh, I flew up from Arizona and, uh, went to the hospital and my father was there at the same time.

Lise: Oh.

- So, we spoke and were, uh, very... cordial with each other and shook hands.

And that was pretty much it.

You know, and, and I tried to contact him a few times after that.

And, uh, it was just like back, being back to the same old, same old ways.

Um, so rather than put myself through that again, um, I just accepted it.

- Has this journey changed your thoughts about it at all?

Or it didn't really?

- About my father?

- Yeah.

- Um, not really.

Uh, this was more about my grandmother and, and the family above that and the family that really set, uh, everything in motion from, from Canada to the United States and also cemented the roots here in the United States.

So, it was, it was more about finding out who I am as opposed to, um, uh, finding out, you know, more about my father and more about my close relationships.

Lise: Who are you?

[laughs] Nick: Uh, well, I’m a person who comes from very, uh, humble beginnings, um, in the French-Canadian side at least.

To see that they were farmers, to see that they struggled through life, to see that they came to the United States to start a new life, to, to escape, you know, the, the, uh, ec-- the economy and, and the, and the downturn of that area of Canada, um, makes me feel a lot more comfortable with where I am because, um, uh, I had lost my job a while ago.

And we've gotten to the point where things are very humble around the house and it's okay.

You know, if they could do it and they could survive it and they can thrive from it and have such a great family, um, past that generation, um, makes me feel comfortable that, you know, I’ll get through-- I'll get through these things too.

Lise: That's pretty profound, surprise ending for you really.

Nick: Yes.

- You said that to me personally time has passed and has changed your perspective on the whole thing.

What change are speaking of?

- Um, well, the original story about my grandmother was that she had become, uh, separated from her parents specifically because of her relationship and her marriage to my grandfather.

And, um, finding out that, that different evidence, you know, when you go into something, and you start feeling like that is exactly how it is, and you find out more information to the contrary and you start to change your school of thought as to boy, maybe this wasn't the case, you know.

And, and it-- that's a tough transition.

But when it finally happens, you know, it-it's the-- it's Occam’s Razor.

The, the most obvious answer, uh, is usually the correct answer.

And to me it seemed the most obvious answer wasn't, um, that she had become separated from them because of this, uh, relationship.

It was because they didn't read, speak, or write English.

They didn't have transportation.

So, when a family member moved away, um, that became-- that was it.

That was the last time that they would probably see them again.

Lise: Nick, I could keep talking.

I hate to cut you off.

We've run out of time and there's more I wanna talk about, but thank you so much for joining us today, Nick Pitarys.

- Thank you.

It was a wonderful experience.

- I'm glad.

And thank you for joining us.

If you care to be a part of our Generations family, please visit us at byutv.org.

I'm Lise Simms, and I will see you on the next Generations Project.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪