Fernand Ouellette

It’s been far too many years, I don’t remember any more, ( he says, voice ringing with laughter).

I could conjure up thousands of memories of the years I spent at the Collège Séraphique on Wellington Street in Ottawa. I remember, I think it was my first back-to-school experience at this institution run by the Capucins. It was 1943, I was 13 years old. I traveled by train with a suitcase big enough for a steamship ferry. Once I reached school, I waited impatiently, like other students, for my luggage. I leaned into the window watching for my suitcase to arrive in the schoolyard, and smashed the pane at point of contact, neglecting to notice that the window was closed. The whole thing shattered in a thousand pieces around me. The Capucins instantly came to know my name and my studies at the classical college started off with extra costs for my parents!

It was an unnerving experience. I left to go into an exile of ten months, away from the family.