Commemorative Poem: The Woman Who Was Remembered
Marie Louise Souliere
She Fished at Ninety
Before Canada was a nation, she was born—
a girl in Quebec, where the Ottawa runs,
daughter of a patriarch with nineteen children,
carrying a name that cuts through mountains.
She married a voyageur who paddled away
and never came back. She married again.
She crossed the border with three small children,
built a life in Chicago, buried two husbands,
and raised six more to call her mother.
At ninety, she fished in the Florida sun
beside a boy too young to know her story—
too young to know she remembered Quebec,
remembered the voyageur, remembered the crossing,
remembered everything we've had to recover.
She did not write it down. She did not need to.
She lived it—ninety-one years of living—
and when she died, she left behind the thing
that mattered most: a boy who remembered her,
who told his daughter, who found the records,
who tells us now.
She was remembered.
Now she is known.
Every Ancestor Deserves to Be Remembered
Commemorative poems like this one distill a lifetime into something timeless—designed to be framed, read aloud, or treasured for generations.
