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