Happy Bastille Day!

I wanted to feature something French for Bastille Day, and so I decided to feature my Great Grandfather (my mother Mary's maternal Grandfather), Charles St. Pierre (a.k.a. Pa, a.k.a. "The Old Man").  Pa St. Pierre was born in 1853, witnessed the Chicago Fire from the safety of the South Side, and passed away in 1952 at the ripe old age of 99.  My mother always wished I could have known him, telling me that he was quite a character.  Pa, along with my Great Grandmother Mary and their children, would spend summers on their farm in Saint-Eustache, Quebec, and winters in Chicago, where Pa worked as a carpenter.  He may have been a character, but not necessarily a nice character.  He would get into fights at the local tavern well into his 90s, after which the police would drive him home to my Aunt Babe's house at 85th and May on Chicago's South Side, where he lived in the basement.  When someone asked my Grandmother Louise why she thought he lived so long, she replied that you can't kill the devil.  Pa was a strong union supporter, an "everything for the worker" kind of guy, and I have no doubt that if were alive back then, he would have been storming the Bastille along with the rest of those revolutionaries.  Which brings us full circle to where we started. Happy Bastille Day Everyone!