Local author pens memoir about finding her ancestors and her faith

‘THROUGH KNOWING THEM, I KNOW ME’

STURBRIDGE, Mass. – Paula Grandpre Wood was a 19-year-old college student when she first laid eyes on the family heirloom that would become her calling more than a decade later.

Tasked with writing a paper on a woman in the Industrial Revolution, Wood interviewed her grandmother, who brought Wood into a spare room and pulled out a long, colorful sash.

Wood’s grandmother explained that the sash was a “ceinture fléchée,” or “arrow sash,” a traditional Quebec garment dating back to 17th century “New France.” Families passed the garment down along patriarchal lines, and this sash had been in Wood’s family for six generations.

“It was worn by the men in Quebec to wear around the bearskin coats,” Wood said.

Wood’s curiosity about her family history lay dormant after that college project until “a spark” reignited it in 2013. Wood saw a friend who specialized in “five elements” acupuncture, which is tied to ancient Chinese tradition. As one of the needles went in, Wood asked what the point on the body was called according to the tradition, and her friend told her it was the “heavenly ancestor” point.

“From then on, I never stopped,” Wood said. “I became obsessed with knowing who the first owner of the sash was.”

Wood’s calling to research her ancestry came alongside another calling, one she said may have actually laid the foundation for what would eventually turn into her memoir, “The Long Walk Home with the Ceinture Flechee.” In 2010, Wood was called back to the Catholic Church after being away for over three decades. She

took a pilgrimage to Medjugorje, a village in Bosnia believed to be the site where the Virgin Mary appeared in 1981.

Though Wood describes them as “parallel journeys,” she said her return to the Church and her process of researching and writing “The Long Walk Home” could not have happened independently.

“I needed to learn through my ancestors that they were the ones who were bringing me home to God,” she said. “In our culture, our ancestors aren’t honored. They’re closer than you think. You just have to listen.”

Wood’s research into her ancestry began with help from her extended family members who had already conducted some genealogical tracing as far back as the late 1500s. Her aunt Lucille De Grandpre Cournoyer gifted her the research along with copies of the three memoirs written by Wood’s great aunts, which tell the stories of Wood’s great grandparents’ life on their farm in Canada and their immigration to Rhode Island.

“I had all this stuff and I thought it was great,” she said. “I didn’t know what I was doing but I had so many questions.”

Wood began visiting churches and cemeteries in Quebec, tracking down each generation who had owned the sash. On her first trip to Quebec, she began the tradition of wrapping the sash around each gravestone she found. Though the sash was passed down through the patriarchal line, it was the matriarchs who acted as “the keepers of the sash,” Wood said, and “that’s why it’s in such great condition today.”

“The more I held this sash, the more I became interwoven with the sash,” she said. “It’s them, which is me. I keep going with it, and I keep telling the story.”

After her first trip to Canada, Wood still hadn’t found the grave sight of her great grandfather. With additional research, she found him in Pawtucket, where she was born, and where he had moved his family to find work when they lost their farm during the Great Depression. Wood said the move was reluctant, and he died only five years after immigrating to the U.S.

“I fell in love with my great grandfather, who I never met,” Wood said. “I’m telling his story because he never wanted to leave Canada. His faith was beautiful. It inspires me to have the strength to live as he did. He gave up everything for [his family].”

When it came time to write the story, Wood struggled. She had had a long and successful career as a physical therapist before taking partial retirement and moving into private practice.

“I never thought I would write this book because I’m not a writer,” she said. “I knew I had a story I wanted to tell.”

She commissioned a friend to write it for her, but after five years of trying, the friend turned it back to Wood. It was during the quiet months of the pandemic that Wood knew she would have to be the one to put the words on the page.

“I just sat down and started writing,” she said. “I just became obsessed with it.”

Wood knew the story of her family and the story of her spiritual journey could not be told separately, she said. She found herself turning to her ancestors for guidance, and her letters to them became part of the memoir.

“Dear Grandmother Jeanne,” she writes in one. “I did not realize that, during this time of emotional and physical healing, you and my other De Grandpre ancestors were with me. At that turning point of my life, as the wall that encased my heart came tumbling down, you were praying for me, and calling me home to God.”

After completing a first draft, Wood connected with Marjorie Turner Hollman, a Bellingham-based writing coach and developmental editor, who returned the draft with notes and feedback. Wood said she was overwhelmed by the comment symbols and red edit notations covering her draft.

“That was the hardest thing for me to do was open that again,” she said. “I felt like I was taking a college writing course. I just looked at it like that – I’d do my best.”

Wood diligently made her way through the comments, and soon self-published the book through Amazon. As she has begun self-marketing, touring and presenting the book, she said the response has been positive, and she continues to make connections with other researchers and academics familiar with the history she has been pursuing for the last several years.

The book was recently added into the French Institute at Assumption University in Worcester after a historian there saw one of her presentations, and in the summer, she will give a virtual presentation to the American-Canadian Genealogical Society in Manchester, New Hampshire.

As for her own legacy, she said she just hopes someone will be willing to take up the story after her. The sash is now in the possession of her brother, who has a son he will likely pass it on to eventually.

“At this point in my life, I just ask God everyday, ‘What do you want me to do?’” She said. “I never thought I’d be doing what I’m doing now.”

Wood’s book is available to purchase online via Amazon, and more information is on her website, paulagrandprewoodsash.com.