A French Accent Family Joke

Mike Brousseau 0:00

I d I just remember this one uh vacation where she was talking about her favorite hockey team because she was French Canadian. Right. She was saying, I don't like that player. He don't ustle on the hice. Um say that again, I love it. You don't look He don't ustle on the hice. Yeah, the H is just you know displaced.

Hallmark Dreams And Real Vermont

How I Met Your Parents

Crista Cowan 0:26

Stories That Live in Us is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family, past, present, and future. I'm Krista Cowan, known online as the Barefoot Genealogist. Counting down to the upcoming celebration of America's 250th birthday, you'll meet families from each state whose stories are woven into the very fabric of America. Tales of immigration, migration, courage, and community that remind us that when we tell our stories, we strengthen the bonds that connect us. So join me for season two as we discover from sea to shining sea the stories that live in us. I don't know about you, but I love a good hallmark movie. And I know the plots are totally formulaic, right? The girl who's disgruntled with her career in the big city goes upstate somewhere to some remote little village and falls in love with like the Christmas tree farmer or the guy who runs the petting zoo. It doesn't matter. They're fantastic. And I love that they started out as Christmas movies and now they've got holiday versions for everything. There's Valentine's and there's Fourth of July. It's fantastic. It's also kind of an obsession that I share with my mom, which I just love. Now, one of the things about Hallmark movies is they always end up in these remote little places. So when I was a young adult and found myself living just outside of New York City, I used to go to remote little places. And I dreamed of what they would look like and where I might find myself and what adventures I might have along the way. On one of those trips, I found myself in Vermont. And let me tell you, Vermont looks exactly like what you think it should look like. And the little towns felt exactly like what you think they should feel like. Unfortunately, I did not find my petting zoo farmer, but I did find some other gems. My guest today is from Vermont, and he tells charming stories about his parents and his grandparents and the heritage that they have in that state. And I learned a little bit about how closely connected Vermont is to French Canada, which I probably should have figured out because Vermont literally means Green Mountain in French. Enjoy my conversation with Mike Brousseau. Well, I'm so excited to meet you, Mike. Thank you for coming. You bet.

Mike Brousseau 3:10

Thanks for having me.

Crista Cowan 3:11

Yeah, like I love that we just met for the first time, but I feel like I know your family. And you probably don't know this story since we just met. But um I went to college with one of your brothers. And uh I was probably 22 or 23 years old and I moved out to New York City.

Mike Brousseau 3:29

Wow.

Crista Cowan 3:29

And uh just was all alone. It was kind of an adventure. I needed to do something different after I was done with school. And I would take little weekend road trips and would just find myself in random places in Pennsylvania. Or I think once I went down to Southern Virginia. And one weekend I found myself up in Vermont. And I went to church that Sunday and walked in, and people were introducing themselves to me, and the name Brousseau came up. And I thought, wait a second, and walked right up to your parents and I introduced myself to them and asked them if they were Mark's parents, and they said yes, they were, and just had the most delightful conversation with the two of them.

Mike Brousseau 4:14

They were knowing them, that sounds about right.

Crista Cowan 4:16

Lovely people. Um, and you know, that was 30 years ago. But um, then a few years ago, I was here in Utah County at Lehigh High School at one of my nephews' ball games. And another brother of yours, Matt, was there with uh his bro, his son played on the team with my nephew, and your parents came walking up to sit down next to them. And um, I didn't say anything because I wasn't sure if they'd remember me 30 years later, but um, I remembered them and was just so impressed with how much they loved the state of Vermont and how that was just such a part of their identity, even though they ended up here in Utah.

Mike Brousseau 5:00

It's uh it's hard to get Vermont out of your blood.

A Dad From The Northeast Kingdom

Crista Cowan 5:04

Well, so tell me a little bit. I wanted, I wanted so much to to have your dad here. Um, that was who I thought of immediately when I thought of uh telling a story about Vermont. But as I went digging, I learned that he had passed. How long ago did he pass?

Mike Brousseau 5:19

I believe it was about three years ago.

Crista Cowan 5:22

Okay.

Mike Brousseau 5:22

Yeah.

Crista Cowan 5:23

And um, and tell me like tell me about him as a person, as a dad.

Mike Brousseau 5:28

Oh goodness. Um, you know, my dad was uh he was self-made. Um he was a man of great faith. And um he was someone who loved his family and was unapologetic about what he believed. Um, and uh he would talk to everyone everywhere about what he loved and what uh was important to him. Yeah. And he was uh he grew up in a little part of Vermont called the Northeast Kingdom.

Crista Cowan 5:59

Okay, that sounds very fantastical and fair.

A Dairy Queen Meet Cute

Mike Brousseau 6:02

If you look at a map of Vermont all the way up in the the top right corner of the state is the Northeast Kingdom, and it's a place where you could walk off the road into the woods and walk in a straight line for days and never come across another road or a house or anything. And um he uh he grew up there, spoke French in his home growing up. Um his uh mother was uh Canadian, his father was born right there in that part of the state, and um both his parents spoke French, and uh when he graduated from high school, he went into the Air Force and um served in places like in Georgia and Eagle Pass, Texas, and um remote Alaska. Um and then uh he got out of the service, he was in men's clothing for a long time and um met my mom. She was uh eight years younger than he was. So you had to wait for. Well, they got married fairly quickly after they met. I think she was 20 when they met. Okay. And um they uh Do you know how they met? I do. Um he was on a break from his job at Nate's clothing. He had spilled something on his tie, and rather than just buy another tie, he went home to get a new tie and stopped at the Dairy Queen that was down the street from his apartment. And um, my mom was there with one of her friends and a little girl she was babysitting. And so he was at the counter with the little girl and helped her take the food tray over to my mom's table and just watched her throughout lunch. And then um at the end of the meal, he handed her business card from Nate's with his name on it, that's with a note on it that said, I'd like to go out with you sometime. Give me a call. And uh she sent spies into Nates to learn more about him. She didn't respond to him or call him for several months. When she finally did, um, he didn't recognize her. He didn't know. Oh no. She had had her hair up when they met, it was down when they went on their first date. Um, I think she had had it colored or something. And uh that's kind of how it started. And she always wanted to go back to the Dairy Queen.

Crista Cowan 8:23

Yeah.

Mike Brousseau 8:23

And one day he said, You've really got something about the Dairy Queen, don't you? And she said, You don't remember. And all of a sudden it all came flooding back.

Crista Cowan 8:31

And there we go. Yeah, that's how that matched charming. That's really charming. Yeah. And is your mom also from Vermont?

Mike Brousseau 8:38

She is. Uh, she was born and raised in Montpelier, Vermont, the capital of the state.

Crista Cowan 8:43

I went there just this uh let's see, let's see, year and a half ago in the fall. Um, my parents and I did a fall leaf peeping drive. And my dad loves, he has this obsession with college campuses and state capitals. And if there's a college campus or a state capital to visit, he will do it. And he wants to take pictures of the buildings. And so we went to Montpelier so that we could take a picture of the state capitol, and it is the tiniest state capital town I have ever been in.

Mike Brousseau 9:10

It is tiny. It's uh, I think there are two state capitals that have a golden dome, and Vermont's one of them.

Crista Cowan 9:17

It is, and it's beautiful. It's and it's got that little river and the cute little trestle bridge, and um, and then there's kind of like a is there a mining community there?

Mike Brousseau 9:26

Or is it uh there is there's a quarry there. Okay. Um, uh a big granite quarry.

Crista Cowan 9:31

Okay. And so was your mom's family always there?

Mike Brousseau 9:35

Uh she yes, she grew up there. Um, and they she was in Burlington that at that time to meet my dad because she was in college at the University of Vermont. Okay. So that's but her family lived there for a long, long time. And then they her parents, um, after she got married, her parents bought maybe it was around the same time, they bought a farm, uh dairy farm in Colchester, Vermont, which is very close to Burlington. Okay. And um, yeah, a lot of great stories about that place too.

Crista Cowan 10:07

So your parents got married and then they had how many children?

Mike Brousseau 10:10

Four kids. Four. Okay. Two boys or three boys and one girl.

Quimby’s Resort And Family Skills

Crista Cowan 10:14

Okay. And they decided to raise their family in Vermont. They did. Okay. And so did you grow up knowing all four of your grandparents?

Mike Brousseau 10:23

I did. Well, that actually that's not true. My uh paternal grandfather passed away before my parents got married, before my mom never even met him. But I knew the other three pretty well. Um in fact, we did family vacations with my paternal grandmother all the time. She was French-Canadian. She had a great accent and a great sense of humor. Um, she was the type of lady that uh she didn't have very much formal education, but my dad had a memory of her taking apart the refrigerator. It wasn't working. And she had taken it all apart and laid it all out on the floor so that she could remember where the pieces went.

Crista Cowan 11:02

And there was no YouTube to tell her how to do it.

Mike Brousseau 11:04

And there was no YouTube university. Um, and she put it all back together and got it running.

Crista Cowan 11:08

So that's amazing. She sounds remarkable.

Mike Brousseau 11:11

Yeah, she taught herself how to play the organ, and um, yeah, she was. I I just remember this one uh vacation where she was talking about her favorite hockey team because she was Princess Canadian. Right. She was saying, I don't like that player. You don't hustle on the heist. Say that again, I love it. You know what? He don't hustle on the heist. Yeah. The H is just, you know, got missing, you know, displaced. Um she they owned a convenience store when I was a baby in Essex Junction, Vermont. And um there was a uh traveling salesman that came into the store and he was selling fruit. And as they were check kind of checking off what they wanted in the store, she said, uh, how about some of those oranges with no bones in them? Like, because English was not her first language there.

Crista Cowan 12:09

So she's translating everything as she goes.

Mike Brousseau 12:12

And my of course, my dad had to chime in and say, I'd like some of the ones with with the bones, and if we could arrange that.

Crista Cowan 12:20

Oh, that's delightful. Did she ever share stories about your grandfather?

Mike Brousseau 12:24

Yes, uh, my father shared stories about him a lot. Um so my my grandfather was a lumberjack in the winter, okay, and he was a fishing guide in the summer. There was a little uh resort there called Quimby's, um, where very famous wealthy families, influencers at the time, went to spend their vacations in their summers. In fact, my dad learned to play tennis on a clay court and was taught by Mr. Hoover of Hoover Vacuums. Okay, then. Um, and so my my grandfather was a fishing guide for the guests at at Quimby's and his whole family ended up working there in one uh way or another over the years. Uh, I think my grandmother cooked and cleaned rooms, and my grandfather did the the fishing. My dad worked as a cook and as a waiter. Um, and they just it was it's sounds kind of idyllic the way he told the story.

Crista Cowan 13:26

Yeah, absolutely. And what like what time period was that? What decades?

Mike Brousseau 13:31

Uh let's see, my dad was born in 39, so it was probably in the 40s and 50s.

Crista Cowan 13:36

Yeah. So that was kind of that post-war baby boomer idealized time of period of time, yeah, in American history.

Mike Brousseau 13:44

It's interesting. My grandfather could not read or write. Um, but he ended up doing a lot of carpentry work after they left that part of the state, and he could build a perfect spiral staircase. Whoa. Without having all of the math and the calculus to figure out how to how to do that.

Crista Cowan 14:02

Are any of those still standing somewhere that you've seen?

Mike Brousseau 14:05

Yes, there are. In fact, uh, if you go to Quimby's, you can still see some of his handiwork there, including a 10-pound lake trout that they had stuffed and mounted um, you know, up on the wall over the kitchen.

Brousseau Mountain And Border Life

Crista Cowan 14:19

That's amazing. Okay, now I heard a rumor that there's a place in, and I don't know if it's in the Northeast Kingdom called Brousseau Mountain.

Mike Brousseau 14:26

There is.

Crista Cowan 14:27

Tell me about that.

Mike Brousseau 14:29

Okay, so uh my great-grandfather, um Joseph Phileas Brousseau, um, he was also born in Quebec, um, but immigrated to Vermont um with his wife. Um, and uh that's where my grandfather was born. And they actually raised 11 kids on this mountain um near near April Lake. Yeah, near Avril Lake, small April Lake. Um and uh someone decided that's it's Brusso country. Okay, and so they called it Brusso Mountain. So you can actually Google it and you can put yourself, I think you can put yourself on the cliff and overlook the the whole on Google Earth.

Crista Cowan 15:14

Yeah, on Google Earth. That's fun. Um and you do you ever wonder like what leads people to raise 11 children in that kind of wilderness? And like like why are those choices made?

Mike Brousseau 15:28

I do wonder that. Yeah, uh I I chose a very different path. I'm raising only four kids and in a fairly urban. Uh some people might laugh at that term, but it's uh orum and salt lake and provo. It's a different life.

Crista Cowan 15:44

Very different, different life, yeah, for sure. And yet for generations your family stayed there. Yeah um talk talk to me a little bit about I don't know a lot about Vermont history and the French Canadian border, and like I suspect it was probably rather porous for a very long time. Very much so.

Mike Brousseau 16:00

And so there's a lot of French influence throughout Vermont, uh, particularly the north out of Vermont. Um, although when I went to high school, I uh there were a lot of kids with French names. Um yeah, it's uh Vermont was the 14th state, so the first one after the original 13 colonies. Okay. Um I've actually had people here ask me what state Vermont is in. Oh yeah, that's that's a little sad. Um but it was the 14th state, and it was actually uh uh kind of a pivotal state in the Revolutionary War. Do tell the the St. Lawrence Seaway was uh emptied into part of it anyways, emptied into Lake Champlain, uh-huh, which empties into the Hudson River, which empties into the New York Harbor. Yeah. And so uh there was a place in upstate New York called Ticonderoga where there was a fort. The fort, yeah. And um, anyone who controlled the fort, it was narrow enough that you could shoot a cannon all the way across the lake. And so Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys from Vermont went across the lake in the middle of the night and uh and took Fort Ticonderoga without firing a shot, and it um prevented the British from getting supplies into New York Harbor and was kind of a one of those turning points. Yeah, sounds like it.

Crista Cowan 17:19

I have heard of Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys, but I did not realize the connection to Vermont.

Mike Brousseau 17:24

Yeah, most people here have heard of Ethan Allen furniture. Well, yeah. Um yeah, so uh the Canadian influence is very strong. In fact, uh, even when I was growing up, um, because they have a value-added tax in Canada, people would shop in Vermont and then drive things across the border. Yeah. Um, and I grew up uh taking French classes and then ended up serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ in uh Switzerland and France, speaking French. And my first job after my mission was working at an American Eagle in the mall in Burlington, and I would have French Canadians come in all the time. And uh sometimes I would tell them I spoke French, sometimes I would just interject things um in English. Yeah. That works to confuse people a little bit. And and uh we also don't have extradition policies or things like that, so they would drive really fast through Vermont and get tickets, and you'd see them drive away from the police officer and throw the ticket out the window.

Crista Cowan 18:28

Well, it sounds like they may be as spicy as your grandmother. So your grandmother was French Canadian, your grandfather, how far back before we get into French Canada on his side?

Mike Brousseau 18:39

Uh I think both of his parents were from French Canada. Okay.

Crista Cowan 18:42

Um, and they're the ones who came and settled Brusseau Mountain. Yes. Got it. Okay. And then what about your mom's family? How long have they been in Vermont?

Mike Brousseau 18:50

Uh let's see. I think um my grandfather was born, my mom was born in Vermont, my grandfather was born in Philadelphia, my grandmother was born in uh Plattsburgh, New York. Okay, but her mom was born in Vermont. Oh. Her dad was born in Vermont as well. Um, and then uh right before um, I think his parents were both born in Ireland. Uh I think it was County Limerick in Ireland. Um, and then her grandmother's her grandmother was born in Sweden.

Crista Cowan 19:29

Okay. Um And so why did they come to Vermont, do you think?

Mike Brousseau 19:33

I think they were building highways and there were farming opportunities and there was land available and and I think they had no idea how cold it was. Yeah.

Crista Cowan 19:44

Well, and it's interesting because like when we think about farming, we don't think about Vermont's, right? Like because of the long winters, I suspect. Yeah. Um and yet they managed to make a life anyway, huh?

Mike Brousseau 19:55

Yes. And there are a lot of dairy farms there too. In fact, the we joke in my family that there are more cows than people in the state. Um, but of course they do make the best maple syrup and the best cheese.

Crista Cowan 20:07

Well, I don't know that Wisconsin or Canada would agree with you, but Well, they don't have to.

Mike Brousseau 20:12

It's just it's just a fact.

Crista Cowan 20:14

I forget about that. So talk to me about like like what it meant to you to grow up in Vermont. What does that look like for you?

Names Change On Official Records

Mike Brousseau 20:22

I grew up in a kind of a small town called Essex Junction. Um that had an IBM uh factory in that city, and so the schools were all really well funded. Uh, but my high school only had about 1200 students. Okay. Um some of that was because uh unincorporated cities could choose where they sent their kids. Uh okay. And because the high school was so well funded, they a lot of people sent their kids to Essex Junction. Um, the thing I loved about Vermont though is that it was uh it was small enough that everyone knew everyone. Like even people that lived all the way across town, which wasn't that far. Um, we all knew each other, uh the kids all knew each other. Uh people did a lot socially. It was and it was a very safe place to grow up for the most part. Yeah. Like I said, there was there was a good educational system. Um every friend that I went to high school with ended up going to college, some to Ivy Leagues. Um it was uh and we were very close to Burlington, which is the biggest city in Vermont. Um and Burlington had all the had great restaurants and theaters and places where you could go to concerts and um University of Vermont, of course. Uh I think there were several universities in that area, um, St.

Crista Cowan 21:48

Michael's College and Champlain College, and that's something that for everybody I've ever met from Vermont values education. Yeah. Like there's just something, and maybe that's just been my exposure or experience. Experience, but it feels like that's something that's really important there. And I don't know if that's part of the French Canadian influence or if that's just the nature of the people in Vermont or the educational system. I don't know what that is.

Mike Brousseau 22:11

Yeah, I'm not sure what it is either. But I I agree with you. Um even in the smaller rural areas, you could tell it was important to people.

Crista Cowan 22:19

Yeah, because in a lot of states, when you get into those rural areas, especially, you know, even back when we were growing up, but certainly through the 40s and 50s and 60s, education was not as important to a lot of people.

Mike Brousseau 22:30

So yeah, it's funny. My uh my mom went to college, she got a degree in nursing. Um, my dad did not, though. So I would I think I was the first Brusso descendant to actually get a bachelor's degree. Okay. Um that's I consider that a big honor. Um, and uh now, of course, all my siblings have degrees, and uh we've got kids with degrees now, so that's been uh that's been a good good direction for us, I think. One of the things you might find interesting as a family history expert is that um back where my grandfather was born, where my father was born, um they were in Catholic hospitals when they were born. And what the parents asked for to go on the birth certificate wasn't always what ended up on the birth certificate. Oh, yeah. The nuns would add Mary or Marie or Joseph, depending on you know gender, to every single person's name.

Crista Cowan 23:32

Whether the person was Catholic or not.

Mike Brousseau 23:34

That's right.

Crista Cowan 23:34

Okay.

Mike Brousseau 23:35

And so my dad grew up thinking his name was Norman Joseph Brusso. That's what he always went by. That's when he enlisted in the Air Force. That's what he put on his application, Norman Joseph Brusso. Well, he was part way through basic training, and they came, they said, Okay, who's here from Vermont? And there were a few people that raised their hands. Who's from Averill, Vermont? He was the only one in the room from Averill, Vermont, and they said, Is your name what is your name, boy? He said, Norman Joseph Brusso. They said, No, it's not. Here's your birth certificate. It was Joseph Solomon Norman Brusso.

Crista Cowan 24:11

Oh my goodness.

Mike Brousseau 24:12

So they threw in the Joseph at the front, they threw in his dad's name next, and then the Norman that his asked for for him. And so he had to go through a two-inch stack of papers and re-sign everything, refill everything out, resign everything. Um, and so sometimes doing family history, um, you get some surprises. Yeah. Uh, the other thing that we've noticed um as we've researched our family is that um there are times when uh they would do a census, but the people living in the home didn't have any education or formal education. And so sometimes the spellings are weird. Yeah.

Crista Cowan 24:51

It can be really difficult, really challenging to well, and especially in a place like Vermont where you've got some language fluidity, right? You've got you've got some challenges maybe with a census taker who doesn't speak French and somebody giving the census taker the information with a French accent and they're trying to figure out how to spell that.

Mike Brousseau 25:08

And so you have some phonetic spellings and how long did it take you to learn how to spell your last name?

Crista Cowan 25:14

There's a lot of vowels in there.

Mike Brousseau 25:15

Yeah. I actually one of the most traumatic experiences of my childhood was going to kindergarten on the first day. They had all of our names up on the wall behind the teacher's desk, and they said, point out your name. And I got there was a Mike Brown in my class, and I saw the mic and the BRO, and I thought, that's gotta be me, right? And it turns out I was, and then I saw the name, and I started to cry because that was a lot of letters.

Wartime Love And Sunday Dinners

Crista Cowan 25:39

Right. Um that's amazing. Any stories from your grandparents on your mom's side of the family that you remember growing up?

Mike Brousseau 25:49

You know, my my maternal grandparents met in England during World War II.

Crista Cowan 25:55

Oh, wow.

Mike Brousseau 25:56

Um, my grandmother was an army nurse, and my grandfather was the captain of the hospital that she worked at. And that's where they first met and started to date. Um, and then uh they went back to Philadelphia to meet his parents. And um, so I think that's kind of an interesting background that they came from that. Um fact, my grandmother was uh she was one of those non no nonsense people that even in her 90s was still correcting us about how to make eggs. Okay. Um because there's a right way and there's there's her way and the wrong way. Okay, right. One of those. And uh she was a force of nature. And um, yeah, her my grandfather died when I was, I think, eight years old. Um, and she lived into her 90s.

Crista Cowan 26:47

Wow. Did she remarry?

Mike Brousseau 26:49

She did not.

Crista Cowan 26:49

Okay.

Mike Brousseau 26:50

She did not. Um, I have an aunt who had three little boys who uh was divorced, who bought a house in the same neighborhood as her home. Um, actually, she already had the home. My grandmother bought a home in that neighborhood to be close to her, and so she helped raise grandsons for a lot of years.

Crista Cowan 27:10

Wow. How many grandchildren did she have, do you know?

Mike Brousseau 27:14

Oh boy.

Crista Cowan 27:15

Counting all the cousins?

Mike Brousseau 27:16

Yeah, I 15.

Crista Cowan 27:19

Okay. And you still got to have a relationship with her? Yes. Yeah. Which that's a big deal, right? Sometimes in big families, especially when a grandmother is helping raise a set of grandchildren, those they become the focus and they lose focus a little bit on some of the others.

Mike Brousseau 27:34

Yeah, and she was a real unifier in the family. Um, she regularly would have all of the family over for Sunday dinners. Um, she would even invite my dad's siblings when they were close by to come to the Sunday dinners too. And um yeah, um, I feel very close to uh to my cousins, particularly on that side of the family. Um, we did do a lot of things with the Brusel cousins too. They were a little bit more spread out. Um, but Hilda, Hilda Danaher, um, she was uh she was a great unifier.

Crista Cowan 28:11

That's amazing. I love that you had her for so long, too.

Mike Brousseau 28:13

Yeah. Yeah, she even came and visited us here on a regular basis. And um when I came to to Utah, I I was accepted to BYU um out of high school. And my parents planned a big road trip where we went south to Atlanta, Georgia to visit some of my dad's best friend from his childhood, and then west to Houston to visit my mom's brother and his family, and then to Utah. And Hilda came with us on the trip.

Crista Cowan 28:41

Oh, how fun. Yeah.

Mike Brousseau 28:43

And to my dad's last days, he always said that traveling with Hilda was better than traveling with Kathy, my mom.

Crista Cowan 28:49

Okay, then.

Mike Brousseau 28:50

My mom had to go to the bathroom a lot, so it was well. Alice.

Crista Cowan 28:58

Hilda and Alice.

Mike Brousseau 28:59

Yeah, my kids have an all-star list of names to choose from for grandma names. Yeah. We have Hilda and Alice, and on my wife's side, we have Zelda and Ilsa.

Crista Cowan 29:07

That's amazing.

Mike Brousseau 29:08

Fantastic, right?

Crista Cowan 29:10

But so far you only have grandsons?

Mike Brousseau 29:11

Uh yes.

Crista Cowan 29:12

Okay. Well, we'll hold out for some of those grandma names. That's so great. None of your siblings' families have stolen those names.

Mike Brousseau 29:21

Uh no. Okay. Uh, they did not. They did. Um, one of the grandsons uh was named after my grandfather Solomon. Um, and I think there were some middle names where you had there's some Joseph's and things like that, too.

Crista Cowan 29:37

So we're gonna make sure those Josephs and Marys get passed along.

Mike Brousseau 29:40

That's right. We have to.

Crista Cowan 29:42

Well, so uh has all of your family eventually left, all of your immediate family left Vermont?

Mike Brousseau 29:47

They all followed me west.

Crista Cowan 29:49

Okay, so you started that trend? I did. Okay.

Mike Brousseau 29:52

I did.

Crista Cowan 29:53

Um, your parents stayed in Vermont for a long time though, even though you all kind of moved out this way.

Mike Brousseau 29:58

They did. In fact, two of my siblings uh lived with them in Vermont for periods of time while they were when they were first married. Um, I had a brother-in-law who uh ended up doing some advanced schooling at the University of Vermont. And um my brother Matt, who you know, uh he and his wife lived with them briefly in Vermont as well.

Crista Cowan 30:18

Yeah. And so then they finally, when all the kids and grandkids were here, they finally moved out here.

Parenting To Grandparenting Lessons

Mike Brousseau 30:23

Yeah, she was she was hesitant at first um because she had a really, really close relationship with her mom. And um her mom was getting older and she was really concerned about leaving her mom. And um, I don't feel guilty about this, but I I actually told her one day, your kid, your grandkids are changing every day. You're always going to have a relationship with your mom. Yeah, and your grandkids don't know you. Um, and so my dad decided that uh instead of paying therapy bills and for long distance charges, which was a thing back then, uh, when he could retire from nationwide insurance, he retired, and my mom also retired from nursing and they moved out here. And uh my mom actually worked at St. Mark's Hospital in Salt Lake for a few years before she retired. She was able to come out to a job.

Crista Cowan 31:14

Yeah. And what kind of what kind of grandparents like you you just reminisced about your grandparents? How would you describe your parents as grandparents?

Mike Brousseau 31:22

Well, we were the first ones to have grandchildren, and so we kind of had to teach them a little bit about how to be grandparents. Um, but they were fantastic. Uh, we had many opportunities where the kids would either stay with them or they'd come to our house and stay with the kids while uh we did business travel together. And um, first of all, my dad was the consummate tease. Um, you didn't want if you had young children, you didn't want to sit in front of him at church because he would bug your kids the whole meeting. Um, but if he sat next to him, he was great because they would all sit on his lap and he would entertain them, you know, all through the meetings. There you go. Um, and the kids learned that when you turned six and he said, How old are you now? And they said six, he would say, 'Well, I didn't ask you how you felt.' I asked you how old you're so they all learned to, you know, I'm six, um, or I'm almost seven. And he had something for each of their ages. And uh, if the kids had braces, he would ask if they could stand by the TV so he could improve the reception. Which they probably didn't get. Right. They didn't get that. Um he loved to laugh. Um he was an amazing singer. Um my brother Mark got his voice for sure. And uh he was someone that could sing anything. He was he was a true baritone, but I never heard him miss a note. Like he didn't matter how high it went, he could hit the notes. And he would sing at all the children's big events. Um he always had a guitar in his hand and would you know play and sing for the family. And my mom uh was just loving and supportive uh to this day. The the only piece of real parenting advice I ever got from her was just love them. Um, and that kind of sums her up as a person. Um and I think my kids enjoyed spending time with them. They've got funny stories about the grandparents too. Um yeah, it uh it was fun to watch them as grandparents. There were times I had to remind my kids that those people you know that are so nice they were different when I was a kid.

Crista Cowan 33:39

Right. Um well, as you think about now your own journey into grandparenthood, what kind of grandpa do you want to be?

Why Place Matters In Family

Mike Brousseau 33:46

I'd like to be like them. Um, you know, someone who uh is curious about my grandkids, um, who is uh involved in their lives and goes to activities. My my wife and I got to go to grandparents' day at my oldest grandson's kindergarten the other day and eat some little Caesars Pizza and go to the book fair with them. They're smart, they invite the grandparents to a book fair. Because you'll buy them too. That's right. Exactly. The parents were like, Yeah, we have too many books now already. Yeah. Grandparents are sending them home with four or five books.

Crista Cowan 34:20

So fun.

Mike Brousseau 34:21

Um, yeah.

Crista Cowan 34:22

As you think about your grandkids, like what do you want them to know about Vermont?

Mike Brousseau 34:28

Um, first of all, that it was a great place to grow up. Um just the the atmosphere, the the feeling of community um was really special. Um maybe a vacation to Quimby's in your future? Absolutely. We haven't I haven't gotten the kids to Quimby's yet. They uh they've been back to Vermont a couple of times, but we need to get up to that part of the state.

Crista Cowan 34:56

There you go. Well, thank you for sharing Vermont with us.

Mike Brousseau 35:00

It's uh it was a great place to grow up. I have really fond memories.

Crista Cowan 35:05

I love that. Sorry, you're choking me up. Um, the the the importance of place in our family stories. Yeah. Like it matters. It does. It really does.

Mike Brousseau 35:16

And I and I think maybe the thing that my parents um transmitted to us, maybe more than aside from their faith um and their love for each other, uh, they really instilled in us the importance of family. Um families first. And we make sacrifices for each other. And um, you know, growing up as kids, of course, we had our conflicts and like every family does, but I would literally follow any of my siblings to hell and back to have their back um in any situation, um, because uh family comes first and they are fantastic people in their own right.

Crista Cowan 36:02

That's amazing. Maybe the Northeast Kingdom isn't just a place in Vermont. Maybe it's maybe it has something to do with the people from there. Yeah, thank you. I like that. Studio sponsored by Ancestry.