Acadian Roots

Have you ever stopped and thought about, back in the times of our ancestors how did they do this and why did they do that? Since I have been reading about my ancestors and everyone else's I have come across some interesting stuff.
How did they light up their homes back then? They did not have electricity, nor lamps for a long while. It sure must have been some dark during the night times. Picture yourself, in the woods, surrounded by trees with no lights on around ten o'clock in the evening. It sure would have been scary to me. Imagine, just pitch black and you hear the sounds of animals out there. A coyote, wolves. BRRR. So what did some of our ancestors do? Well many of them had fireplaces in the middle of a room, that would heat up their homes which usually were one room houses with everyone sleeping in one corner of the room, the kitchen also in the same room. So the fireplaces would heat up the house and plus, it would give them some lighting. So they would probably read if they read by the fireplace, or knit and sew by the fireplace.
Now in Sainte Anne de Kent, they would put Codfish oil in a saucer they they would soak a rag or a piece of wool into it and they would light the end of the rag or yarn which would give them a little bit of light. Many times instead of using a saucer they would use half of a turnip with the inside all cleaned out, and they would sometimes use a piece of lard and light it and this would be a better light than the one I mentioned before. Sometimes they would take the turnip and make two holes ,one big enough to scoop out the turnip and another small one, then they poured the fish oil inside with a wick and light the wick and voila, there was light. We have to aknowledge that our ancestors were survivors, they made something out of nothing.
Now totally changing the subject but yet still regarding our ancestors. I have created a 2010 calendar called Acadian Roots Calendar 2010. On the page of each month I have added one of our acadian ancestors, and just a little bit about them. I have added the following names for this first calendar and I am preparing another calendar with different names.The following are in this calendar: Pierre Arsenault, Michel Boudreau, Robert Cormier, Jean Doiron, Francois Gautreau, Michel Hache dit Gallant,Michel Forest,Daniel LeBlanc, Barnabe Martin,Etienne Robichaud and Pierre Surette. You can find the calendar at www.zazzle.com/allicor , or you can go to the bottom of this page and you will see my store and the calendar and I created the cover in a pretty blue.
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Have a great day
Aline.