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Marie-Rose Turcot 1887-1977
On Saturday, June 25, 2005, at 12:30 p.m., the Ontario Heritage Trust unveiled a provincial plaque commemorating Marie-Rose Turcot – journalist, writer and folklorist – at the Astrolabe in Ottawa, Ontario, during the Festival franco-ontarien.
The plaque was unveiled by The Honourable Madeleine Meilleur, Ontario Minister of Culture and Minister Responsible for Francophone Affairs, and Dr. Paule Doucet, Board member for the Ontario Heritage Foundation. The provincial plaque will be permanently located at the Rideau Branch of the Ottawa Public Library, 377 Rideau Street.
The bilingual plaque reads as follows:
MARIE-ROSE TURCOT 1887-1977
Born in Laurierville, Quebec, Marie-Rose Turcot moved to Ottawa around the age of 20 to work in the civil service. Later, working as a journalist, Marie-Rose Turcot published in the daily newspaper Le Droit, as well as in several other weekly and daily publications in Ottawa and Montreal, sometimes using the pseudonym Constance Bayard. She also worked in broadcast journalism for the French radio station CKCH in Hull, Quebec. Turcot was the author of a novel, several collections of short stories, and poems, and was a pioneer in collecting and publishing Franco-Ontarian folk tales. She was active in a number of French-Canadian cultural organizations in Ottawa, including Le Caveau, as well as in professional associations. She lived in Ottawa for most of her life, and died in Orléans.
MARIE-ROSE TURCOT, 1887-1977
Née à Laurierville, au Québec, Marie-Rose Turcot a déménagé à Ottawa vers l’âge de 20 ans pour travailler à la fonction publique. Plus tard, comme journaliste, Marie-Rose Turcot a écrit des articles pour le quotidien Le Droit, de même que pour plusieurs autres quotidiens et hebdomadaires d’Ottawa et de Montréal, parfois sous le pseudonyme de Constance Bayard. Elle a aussi été journaliste à la station radio française CKCH, à Hull, au Québec. Mme Turcot est l'auteure d’un roman, de plusieurs collections de nouvelles et de poèmes. Elle a collectionné et publié des contes folkloriques franco-ontariens, faisant figure de pionnière en la matière. Elle a œuvré au sein de plusieurs associations professionnelles et organismes culturels franco-ontariens, à Ottawa, comme Le Caveau. Elle a vécu à Ottawa pendant la majeure partie de sa vie. Elle est morte à Orléans.
Historical background
Throughout her life, Marie-Rose Turcot's typewriter was her intermediary with the world, her sixth sense as she called it late in life.1 She used it to earn her living first as a secretary in the civil service and later as a journalist, and also to pursue her literary and intellectual activities, writing the seven books that she published and the numerous lectures that she presented to cultural and professional associations in Ottawa.
Marie-Rose Turcot was born in Laurierville, Quebec on July 2, 1887, the daughter of Georges Turcot and Belzémire Rousseau. She had two sisters, Jeanne and Blanche. Her father, a merchant, was a Liberal Member of Parliament representing Mégantic, Quebec.2 His political connections helped Marie-Rose enter the civil service as a secretary around the age of 20. It was at this point that the entire family came to live in Ottawa, and it was also about this time that her father died.3
Turcot completed the academic program of study at the convent school in Plessisville, Quebec run by the Sisters of Charity (also known as the Grey Nuns). She then took courses in philosophy and literature at the University of Ottawa and was among the first French-Canadian women to study at the university level. The courses she took were given by Léon LeBel, an Oblate priest who was an agrégé (teacher) from the Sorbonne. Turcot considered him her most important mentor. He encouraged her first writing attempts, applauded her successes and continued to follow her progress, even after he returned to his native France.4
Turcot's first publication was the story ''Les impressions d'un homme dans une carafe'' (The Impressions of a Man in a Pitcher), which appeared in the Montreal daily La Presse (The Press) in 1918.5 The story contains elements of the fantastic and tells of a man who dreams that he has a carafe containing the ashes of the man who is his rival in love. The same year, she entered the story ''Nestor et Picolo'' (Nestor and Picolo) in a literary contest held by the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal. It is a mildly cynical, yet sympathetic portrait of a young man, Nestor Laceraye, who climbs the socio-economic ladder accompanied by his dog Picolo. The story was awarded a prize and was published in the collection of prize-winning entries one year later.6 Both of these stories were included in her first book, a collection of short stories, L'Homme du jour (The Man of the Day), which appeared in 1920.7 The manuscript had been gathering dust in a drawer and was finally published thanks to the recognition Turcot received from the contest – and to help from two people, Marie Gérin-Lajoie, editor of the review La Bonne Parole (The Good Word), whom Turcot considered her godmother in the literary world, and Émile Miller, secretary of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal (The Saint John the Baptist Society of Montreal).8
Love plays only a minor role in ''Nestor et Picolo'', while it is the central theme in the other stories of L'Homme du jour. The title of the collection is also the title of the opening story, which is about the strained relationship between a political candidate and his wife during his first election campaign. The entire book is dedicated to Turcot's father, who served three terms in the House of Commons, and was first elected in 1887, the year of Marie-Rose's birth.9 Of the seven stories in the collection, five are told from the point of view of the female main character who is living a crisis in her personal relationships.
At the time she published L'Homme du jour, Turcot had recently received a promotion in the civil service, becoming secretary to Dr. Henri Séverin Béland, a Liberal representing Beauce, Quebec, who was Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment and Minister presiding over Health.10 The promotion coincided with the end of what Turcot described as a golden era of happy insouciance, when life in the federal ministries was “a captivating monotony of routine without worry nor ambition [which] allowed us to live our lives based on the invitations we received''.11 During the next ten years, she was secretary to five federal ministers.12
Throughout her life, Turcot managed several concurrent activities. She earned her living as a secretary and later as a journalist, while at the same time participating in several professional and cultural associations, and also publishing original literary works and folklore. The ''itch to write'' was a lifelong motivation,13 as evidenced by her longstanding membership in the Ottawa section of the Société des écrivains canadiens (Canadian Writers Society) from 1920-50.14 Turcot was able to lead such an active social and professional life in part due to the fact that she remained unmarried. She says in ''SimpleAveu'' (Simple Confession) that she had three opportunities to marry but each time, at the definitve moment, she hesitated then walked away, happy above all “to not have to devote myself to any discipline for a lifetime, happy to breathe the air and absorb the light of a voluntary solitude that allowed me to evolve as I wished and to use my free time to read and write.”15
In 1924, several of Turcot's stories appeared in Annales. Lettres – histoire – sciences – arts (Annals. Literature – History – Science – Arts), published by the Institut canadien-français d'Ottawa (The French-Canadian Institute of Ottawa), an important cultural organization founded in 1852 with the aim of developing the moral, intellectual and physical well-being of its members who were mainly drawn from the French-Canadian elite. By 1925, the Institute had some 600 members. It organized theatrical presentations, lectures and debates on literary and scientific topics, cultural and patriotic events and maintained a library.16
Turcot's most productive years – 1920-50 – coincided with an effervescent and tumultuous period for Ottawa's French-Canadian elite. On the one hand, they had numerous artistic and cultural associations in which to develop and share their cultural heritage. But at the same time, that same cultural heritage was imperiled by the enactment of the infamous Regulation XVII, which in 1912 abrogated the right to schooling in French in Ontario. This event triggered an outpouring of support from French Canadians from coast to coast, proof that French-Canadian identity was pan-Canadian. The social and political repercussions from Regulation XVII affair were long lasting. Although there is no explicit mention of these historical events in Turcot's books, her stories suggest that Turcot shared in the pan-Canadian French-Canadian identity for they feature French-Canadian characters who live in Quebec, Ottawa, Regina and Ponteix, Saskatchewan, as well as in Detroit, New England and New York reflecting the French-Canadian diaspora.
Soon after publishing her first stories, Turcot made a trip that would prove to be a turning point. In 1925, she went to Washington as part of the French delegation to the conference of the International Council of Women. She was the only French Canadian among delegates from forty-three countries who were discussing post-war problems. New horizons opened for her as she conversed with these women, many of whom had previously participated in debates of the same issues at the League of Nations.17
At the conference, Turcot met the Estonian writer Aino Kallas who had collected and published folk stories from her native country. Nearly the same age as Turcot, Kallas was a well-established writer who had been living in London for several years with her diplomat husband. Kallas was inspired by Romantic nationalism and her work in folklore was an effort to contain Russian cultural hegemony in the Soviet satellites. Kallas' writing was an inspiration to Turcot and Kallas personally encouraged her.
As a result of this meeting, Turcot published seven folktales that she collected in 1930-31 from three elderly French-Canadian informants with links to Ontario. Évariste Nadeau was an 80-year-old former lumberjack living at the Hospice Saint-Charles (Saint-Charles Home) in Ottawa. Born in Rivière-du-Loup in 1848, he had been a foreman in the lumber camps of the Gatineau. On Saturday nights, the drivers and the lumberjacks gathered to hear him tell the stories that he knew by heart. He had read only one book, A Thousand and One Nights, from which he had drawn the names of the Grand-Vizir and the Prince d'Orient for his story the ''Chevreuil merveilleux'' (Magnificent Deer). In addition to this story, Nadeau contributed ''La Poileuse'' (The Hairy One) – entitled ''Souris'' (Mouse) in some versions, and ''Les Bessons'' (The Bessons). It is likely that he also contributed ''Le Dragon vert'' (The Green Dragon).
Éliane Angrignon of Montreal was the source of the stories ''La Belle Marie'' (The Beautiful Mary) and ''L'Oiseau vair'' (The Mottled Bird). The latter story had been learned from her maternal great-grandfather, Michel Chartrand, who was originally from Sainte-Martine in the county of Chateauguay, Quebec and had lived the last part of his life in Orléans, Ontario. Madame Alarie, originally of Quebec City and a resident of Ottawa in 1930, who was 92 years old, told Turcot the story ''La Reine des Ormeaux''18 (The Queen of Elms) which Turcot remembered hearing as a child.19
All of these tales are part of the French-Canadian popular tradition and have been identified as belonging to story-type classifications established by ethnologists. All of the stories except ''Le Dragon vert'' (The Green Dragon) contain elements of the fantastic. And all of the tales have been found in other French-Canadian versions, although ''Souris'' is a very rare tale in French Canada and contains motifs that are present in the Irish tradition but not in the French-Canadian.20
Both her own personality as well as the influence of writers other than Kallas were also factors that motivated Turcot to collect and see these tales through several published editions. Turcot had an imagination that was drawn to the fantastic aspects of the tales. She wrote, “My most vivid recollections, those that come to me in the precarious light of morning, stem from a fascination that fairies held for me in my youth.”21 Turcot's love of folk tales dated back to her childhood and the stories her father told before sending his three young daughters off to bed.22
The fairytales of the Grimm brothers and Charles Perreault were also important influences on Turcot23 as was The Peasants by the Polish writer Ladislas Reymont.24 This four-part novel was published between 1902 and 1909 and earned for its author the Nobel Prize in literature in 1924.25 Written in a style that approximates the spoken language of its characters, the novel presents a sympathetic view of the Polish peasantry.
Thanks to Turcot, the folk tales she collected had a long history in print. She first published six of them (excluding ''Le Dragon vert'') in the children's magazine L'Oiseau bleu (The Blue Bird) between 1930 and 1932 and then as the book Au Pays des géants et des fées (In the Land of Giants and Fairies) in 1937. In these versions of the tales, Turcot abandoned the oral form in which her informants told her the stories in favour of a highly literary style. In the preface to the first edition of the book, Alphonse de Larochelle, director of L'Oiseau bleu, advises children that they may need a dictionary in order to understand the stories.26
On the advice of Marius Barbeau, the eminent ethnologist, Turcot rewrote the stories in a manner that more closely resembled the oral form in which she received them from her informants. She was required to do this work from memory, since she had discarded the notes taken while listening to her informants.27 In 1946 and 1948, she republished this version of the stories (it is actually the first publication of ''Le Dragon vert'') in Les Archives de folklore (The Folklore Archives), the new journal directed by the ethnologist Luc Lacourcière.28
The stories were reprinted in several versions in the 1950s. Au pays des géants et des fées was reprinted by Fides in 1951 and 1955. All the editions of this book contained illustrations by James McIsaac. The stories were also published individually in two different series, with illustrations by Maurice Petitdidier. Turcot protested his style of illustration when the first series appeared in the ''Albums du gai lutin'' (The Albums of the Happy Gnome) in 1958 and requested a more traditional drawing style. The publisher Fides obliged and Turcot was happy with the illustrations in the 1959 series of ''Légendes dorées'' (Golden Legends).29
In a letter to Luc Lacourcière towards the end of her life, Turcot stated that she had enjoyed writing these stories and that she wished that she had devoted herself entirely to such folklore.30 This comment, plus the fact that she repeatedly published the tales throughout her career, demonstrates the importance that folklore held for her.
Throughout the years that Turcot was working on the folk tales, she was also writing other books. In 1928, she published Le Carrousel (The Carrousel), a book of memories of her childhood and of the small town where she grew up.31 The book was awarded a prize from the Association des auteurs canadiens (The Association of Canadian Authors). Although many of the stories are about comfortable middle-class families, they also provide a glimpse of the simpler side of country life. She wrote, ”Growing up in the country was a constant source of inspiration for me.”32
In 1930, Turcot published Nicolette Auclair, not a novel as the book's subtitle indicates, but a collection of four short fictions, the eponymous story being a novella while the three others are short stories.33 All deal with love and its positive transformative power. These stories, like much of Turcot's fiction, are told from the point of view of a female character who is instrumental in realizing her own destiny. In this, Turcot resembles other French-Canadian women writers of the period such as Jovette Bernier, Éva Sénécal, Alice Lemieux and Simone Routier, who were innovating in fiction and poetry by creating a new feminine voice and sensibility. However, Turcot's characters remain traditional in that they typically achieve peace and satisfaction within the existing social order, usually marriage, in contrast to Bernier's characters, for example, who are more likely to flout social conventions.
Another book of stories followed in 1932, entitled Stéphane Dugré.34 The seven stories develop in slightly different ways the themes of love and village life. The idea of the meeting of cultures is also explored in this book, as are two themes that are widely seen in French-Canadian literature of the early 20th century: the impact of American culture and the effects of life in the city.
Travel was among Turcot's favourite activities.35 She made three important trips in the 1930s, one to the Canadian West, another to the Maritimes and a third to Europe.36 The Canadian trips were occasioned by conventions in Calgary and Halifax of the Cercle des femmes journalists (The Female Journalists Circle). The trip to Calgary gave Turcot the chance to visit the Rockies, which became the setting for her novel, Un de Jasper (One of Jasper), published in 1933.37 The story involves Danielle Montreuil, who visits Jasper with her painter fiancé. While there, she falls in love with a doctor who has political ambitions. Danielle marries him and settles in Jasper. The doctor becomes jealous when he learns of a painting of his wife done by her ex-fiancé. Danielle leaves her husband who has decided to pursue politics. During the election campaign, he abandons politics in order to reconcile with her.
Turcot's third major trip of the decade was in 1936 when she made a two-month trip to Europe. After a tour of the continent, including Italy, and a visit to Lourdes, she spent five weeks in Paris in the company of the writer Simone Routier and the ethnologist Luc Lacourcière.38 Lacourcière was about to start a year of teaching in Switzerland and Routier had been living in Paris ever since winning the 1929 Prix David, an important literary prize in Quebec. Turcot reveled in their warm friendship and also in the keen discussions she had with them about political events in the news. She viewed the trip to Europe as a milestone in her life; it opened her eyes so that from then on she read differently, and saw films differently. From then on, she mentally organized the events in her life happening either before or after this trip.39 She gave a lecture about the trip to the Women's Press Club, of which she was a member from 1923-51.40
Not long before the trip to Europe, Turcot made a major change in her professional life, joining the newspaper Le Droit as a journalist, a position that she held from 1934 to 1950. After 10 years as the secretary to a federal minister, she felt more or less forced to take early retirement from the civil service. She describes in ''Simple Aveu'' the uncomfortable situation she found herself in: the newly elected minister, Chancellor of the Presbyterian Church of Saint John and former director of the Army Medical Corps, looked askance at her literary activities, and she felt that her political allegiance to the opposition party was not acceptable to him. The change was traumatic but she landed on her feet and accepted an offer to write for the women's pages of Le Droit.41 Turcot's articles covered the fields of art, literature, history, politics, domestic economy and children.42
After leaving the civil service, Turcot also joined the Association des confrères artistes du Caveau (The Association of the Brotherhood of Artists of the Cellar). During the 1930s and 1940s, Le Caveau (The Cellar) was one of the most visible artistic circles in Ottawa. In Turcot's view, its absolute heyday was the period 1934-40: ”These years of spirit and joy characterized the noisy rise, the realization of success to which all members of an artistic and literary movement, including the Corporation of Theatre, Literature, Arts and Music, participated in.”43 She served as president of the Corporation des lettres du Caveau (Corporation of Literature of the Cellar) in 1935-36.44
The 1940s was a busy decade for Turcot. In 1940, she published Le Maître (The Master), a book of evangelical prose and poems, including some traditional Christmas stories.45 Her articles appeared in 20ème siècle (20th Century), an Ottawa monthly, and in Notre Temps (Our Times) and Le Samedi (Saturday), both Montreal weeklies. In 1946, she wrote monthly columns on artistic and musical events taking place in Ottawa for La Revue populaire (Popular Review), also in Montreal. That same year, 10 of her short stories appeared in various publications: Le Droit, Notre Temps, La Tribune of Sherbrooke, Le Nouvelliste (The Novelist) of Trois-Rivières and two French-language newspapers published in French-Canadian communities in New England, L'Impartial (The Unbiased) in Nashua, New Hampshire and Le Phare (The Lighthouse) of Woonsocket, Rhode Island.46 She also published in La Revue Dominicaine (The Dominican Review).47
In 1940-41, Turcot added broadcast journalism to her already varied list of professional experience, doing two shows a week on CKCH over a period of six months. Founded in 1933, CKCH was the first radio station to broadcast entirely in French for a Franco-Ontarian audience, although the station was located in Hull, Quebec. Turcot's broadcasts were part of the show ''Entre-Nous'' (Between Us) and covered a wide variety of topics such as Christmas in Champlain's Quebec ''Habitation'' (Home), the difficulty of being a woman, the painter Maurice Gagnon, the writers Léo-Paul Desrosiers and Michelle Lenormand and modern Greece.48 Many of the broadcasts were adapted and published in Le Droit.49
President of the Société d'étude et de conférences d'Ottawa (Society for Studies and Conferences of Ottawa) from 1945-51, Turcot remained a member of the group until 1960.50 A list she drew up of the lectures that she gave in the years after 1946 to the Caveau and Société d'étude et de conférences gives an idea of her intellectual curiosity. They include the history of New France, 19th-century Canadian history, biblical figures, writers such as Supervielle, Saint-Exupéry, Cocteau, Mauriac, Claudel and Monique Saint-Hélier, Catholic saints, Pearl Buck's book on China and Chopin.51 The breadth of her interests is also shown by the fact that she gave two lectures on children's literature in 1943 to the Association de l'enseignement du français de l'Ontario (The Association of Francophone Education of Ontario), and, in 1947, to the Club Richelieu in Hull.52
Turcot continued publishing into the early 1960s in Notre Temps and in Terre et foyer (Home and Hearth).53 In 1962, she completed her unpublished memoir, ''Simple aveu'', a typewritten manuscript that is now in the Marie-Rose Turcot archive at the University of Ottawa, along with the numerous letters and other documents that bear testimony to her full and productive life.54 In her last years, Turcot continued seeing the many friends she had made through her numerous activities. She died on November 27, 1977 and is buried in the cemetery in Cookshire, in the Eastern Townships of Quebec.55
The Ontario Heritage Trust gratefully acknowledges the research of Yves Frenette, Ph.D., Chair, Multidisciplinary Studies, Glendon College, York University and Mary Elizabeth Aubé, Ph.D., in preparing this paper.
© Ontario Heritage Trust, 2005
1 Centre de civilisation canadienne-française (henceforth CRCCF), Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/2/3, ''Simple aveu'', unpublished memoir dated July 5, 1962, typed ms. p. 14. The original text in French reads: ''...mon dactylo ... me sert de sixième sens''.
2 Parliamentary Internet Parlementaire website. Georges Turcot, born in 1851 in Sainte-Marie de Beauce, was elected first in 1887, defeated in 1891, re-elected in 1896 and 1900, and was in the House of Commons until September 1904. Parliamentary Internet Parlementaire website.
3 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/1/1, ''La Providence qui se lève qques heures...'', handwritten ms. p. 1.
4 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/2/3, ''Simple aveu'', p.12. The Fonds Marie-Rose Turcot contains 32 letters from Léon LeBel, dated 1922 to 1929.
5 Aurélien Boivin, ''L'Homme du jour et autres recueils de contes et de nouvelles de Marie-Rose Turcot'', in Maurice Lemire (dir.), in collaboration with Gilles Dorion, André Gaulin, and Alonzo Le Blanc, Dictionnaire des oeuvres littéraires du Québec, vol. 2, Montréal, Fides, 1980, p. 571.
6 The collection of prize-winning stories was published as Au pays de l'érable. Quatrième concours littéraire de la Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal. Montréal, Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal, 1919, 194 p.
7 Marie-Rose Turcot, L'Homme du jour (contes et nouvelles), Montreal, Beauchemin, 1920, 206 p.
8 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/1/1, ''Marie-Rose Turcot Née à Laurierville, P.Q., fille de Georges Turcot, M.P., décédé'', typed ms., p. 1.
9 Parliamentary Internet Parlementaire website, May 30, 2004.
10 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/2/3, ''Simple aveu'', p. 2.
11 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/2/3, ''Simple aveu'', p. 2.
12 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/2/3, ''Simple aveu'', p. 3.
13 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/1/1, ''La Providence qui se lève qques heures...'', handwritten ms. p. 1.
14 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/2/1, ''Marie-Rose Turcot Née à Laurierville, P.Q., fille de Georges Turcot, membre du Parlement Canadien'', typed ms., p. 1.
15 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/2/3, ''Simple aveu'', p. 2.
16 Charles Dufresne, (Ed.), Dictionnaire de l'Amérique française: francophonie nord-américaine hors Québec, Ottawa, Presses de l'Université d'Ottawa, p. 183-4, 294-5; Francophonies canadiennes, Identités culturelles, May 30, 2004.
17 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/2/3, ''Simple aveu'', p. 3, and CRCCF P22/1/1.
18 Marie-Rose Turcot, ''Trois contes populaires canadiens'', in Les Archives de folklore, Montreal, Fides, vol. 1, 1946, p. 153 and ''Contes populaires canadiens (deuxième série)'', in Les Archives de folklore, Montreal, Fides, vol. 3, 1948, p. 65.
19 Marie-Rose Turcot, Au pays des géants et des fées. Contes de folklore canadien, [Préface d'Alphonse de Larochelle. Illustrations de James McIsaac], Ottawa, Le Droit, 1937, 71 p., ''Introduction''.
20 Vivian Labrie, ''Au pays des géants et des fées, recueil de contes de Marie-Rose Turcot'', in Maurice Lemire (dir.), in collaboration with Gilles Dorion, André Gaulin, and Alonzo Le Blanc, Dictionnaire des oeuvres littéraires du Québec, vol. 2, Montréal, Fides, 1980, pp. 95-96.
21 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/1/1, ''Marie-Rose Turcot Née à Laurierville, P.Q., fille de Georges Turcot, M.P., décédé'', typed ms., p. 2.
22 Marie-Rose Turcot, Le Carrousel (contes et nouvelles), Montreal, Beauchemin, 1928, 120 pp., p. 15.
23 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/2/3, ''Simple aveu'', p. 13.
24 CRCCF, P22/1/1, ''Marie-Rose Turcot Née à Laurierville, P.Q., fille de Georges Turcot, M.P., décédé'', typed ms., p. 2.
25 Ladislas Reymont, The Peasants, New York, A.A. Knopf, 1924-1925.
26 Turcot, op. cit., 1937, ''Introduction''.
27 Jean-Pierre Pichette, ''La Mise en scène littéraire du conte populaire en Ontario français. Le cas de Marie-Rose Turcot'', in Cahiers Charlevoix 3. Études franco-ontariennes. Sudbury, Société Charlevoix and Prise de Parole, 1998, pp. 75-78.
28 Marie-Rose Turcot, ''Trois contes populaires canadiens'', pp. 153-172, and ''Contes populaires canadiens (deuxième série)'', pp. 65-81.
29 Pichette, op. cit., pp. 29-31.
30 Archives de folklore de l'Université Laval, fonds Luc-Lacourcière (P178): Marie-Rose Turcot à Luc Lacourcière, lettre d'Ottawa, non datée, reçue à Québec le 26 octobre 1959, quoted by Pichette, op. cit., p. 22.
31 Turcot, op. cit., 1928.
32 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/1/1, ''Marie-Rose Turcot Née à Laurierville, P.Q., fille de Georges Turcot, M.P., décédé'', typed ms., p. 2.
33 Nicolette Auclair. Roman, Montreal, Louis Carrier & Cie, 1930, 179 p.
34 Marie-Rose Turcot, Stéphane Dugré (contes), Montreal, Beauchemin, 1932, 182 p.
35 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/2/3, ''Simple aveu'', p. 6.
36 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/2/3, ''Simple aveu'', p. 6.
37 Marie-Rose Turcot, Un de Jasper. Roman, Montreal, Éditions A. Lévesque, 1933, 168 p.
38 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/2/3, ''Simple aveu'', pp. 6, 8; CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/1/1, ''La Providence qui se lève qques heures...'', handwritten ms. p. 2.
39 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/1/1, ''Marie-Rose Turcot, née à Laurierville, P.Q., fille de Georges Turcot...'', typed ms., p. 1.
40 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/2/1, ''Marie-Rose Turcot, Active, 400 rue Cumberland, Ottawa, Ottawa, de Juin '45 à Juin '46...'', typed ms., p. 3; CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/2/1, ''Marie-Rose Turcot Née à Laurierville, P.Q., fille de Georges Turcot, membre du Parlement Canadien'', typed ms., p. 1.
41 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/2/3, ''Simple aveu'', p. 3.
42 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/2/1, ''Marie-Rose Turcot Active 400 rue Cumberland Ottawa 29 sept 1945 The following...''; CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/2/1,''Causeries données par Marie-Rose TURCOT aux Émissions ENTRE-NOUS Poste CKCH'', typed ms., pp. 2.
43 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/2/3, ''Simple aveu'',, p. 5.
44 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/2/1, ''Marie-Rose Turcot, Active, 400 rue Cumberland, Ottawa, Ottawa, de Juin '45 à Juin '46...'', typed ms., p. 4.
45 Marie-Rose Turcot, Le Maître (récits et poèmes), Hull, Éditions de l'Éclair, 1940, 121 p.
46 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/2/1, ''Marie-Rose Turcot, Active, 400 rue Cumberland, Ottawa, Ottawa, de Juin '45 à Juin '46...'', typed ms., p. 3.
47 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/1/1, ''Marie-Rose Turcot Née à Laurierville, P.Q., fille de Georges Turcot, M.P., décédé'', typed ms., p. 1.
48 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/2/1, typed ms., p. 1; ''Causeries données par Marie-Rose TURCOT aux Émissions ENTRE-NOUS Poste CKCH'', typed ms., pp. 1-2.
49 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/2/1, ''Marie-Rose Turcot, Active, 400 rue Cumberland, Ottawa, Ottawa, de Juin '45 à Juin '46...'', typed ms., p. 3.
50 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/1/1, ''Marie-Rose Turcot Née à Laurierville, P.Q., fille de Georges Turcot, M.P., décédé'', typed ms., p. 1; CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/2/1, ''Marie-Rose Turcot, Active, 400 rue Cumberland, Ottawa, Ottawa, de Juin '45 à Juin '46...'', typed ms., p. 3.
51 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/2/3, ''Simple aveu'', p. 11-12.
52 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/2/1, ''Marie-Rose Turcot, Active, 400 rue Cumberland, Ottawa, Ottawa, de Juin '45 à Juin '46...'', typed ms., p. 3.
53 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/1/1, ''Marie-Rose Turcot Née à Laurierville, P.Q., fille de Georges Turcot, M.P., décédé'', typed ms., p. 1.
54 CRCCF, Fonds Marie-Rose-Turcot (P 22) P22/2/3, ''Simple aveu''.
55 René Dionne, ''Une grande dame marquée par les fées de sa jeunesse'', in René Dionne, Propos sur la littérature outaouaise et franco-ontarienne, Ottawa, CRCCF, 1978, p. 50.