My Eight Greats

MY EIGHT GREATS is a hybrid collection of poetry and prose about family. It could be about anyone's family. It might make you wonder who in your family will preserve and pass along important facts, moments, and special stories to the next generations.

Lois Perch Villemaire's eight great grandparents immigrated to the United States from Eastern Europe for safer and better opportunities. They traveled by rail and ship, all settling in the city of Philadelphia between 1885 and 1898. Some were meeting relatives or joining close friends who could provide security and guidance in the new land.

Jennie was the unhappy bride in an arranged marriage in Russia but was later reunited with her love, Nathan. Fannie traveled alone to America as a teenager. Sam was a shoemaker with a shop on Girard Avenue, his family of seven lived in an apartment above. What were they like as young people? What were their dreams? What lessons did they teach? Although most of what appears in these pages is true, at times Villemaire uses her imagination.

When she begins to tell stories in poetry and prose, her ancestors step out of the old sepia photos and emerge in bright colors. Poems such as "If You Ask Where I'm From #1" provide details of the homeland of her greats, as well as their occupations in Philadelphia.

Research led to learning more information about her grandparents and parents. Villemaire was especially fascinated with the childhoods of her mother and father. Often, poems and stories were written based on old family photographs.

She writes of her own childhood memories growing up in a Philadelphia suburb in the 1950s and 1960s, in "From the Train, " I Remember Bobby," and "On Not Choosing Paper Dolls."

Villemaire passes along flashes of these lives- if only through an anecdote, reflections her personal memories, or by sharing what she has learned of the challenges they faced.