T.L. Morrisey

Showing posts with label Helene Gougeon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Helene Gougeon. Show all posts

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Joseph Schull

From Google Street View, Joseph Schull's mother's home on 11th Avenue in St. Eustache, QC, in 2009



Joseph Schull with Helene Gougeon on their honeymoon

Joseph Schull was once a prominent writer, he was a playwright, novelist, historian, and poet; today, he is almost completely forgotten. In the late 1950s Schull and his mother lived in a house next door to us on 11th Avenue in St. Eustache. Our cottage was behind the Goodyear's (or is it spelled Goodier?) house and across the street from my grandmother and aunt and uncle's cottage; those were wonderful summer days in the late 1950s and early 1960s. I remember Joseph Schull from those summer days, he had a small cottage behind his mother's house and I could hear him typing there. A few weeks ago I was reading An Anthology of Canadian Poetry (edited by Ralph Gustafson and published in 1942); Schull has some poems in this book. As well, Schull's extensive literary archives are deposited at Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa. I remembered Schull from our summers spent in St. Eustache. He is the first person I was conscious of as a writer; he was at the beginning of my journey as a poet.