News and Reflections: An Athlete Recognizing Mixed-blooded "Acadian" Ancestry -- October 4, 2018

An Athlete Recognizing Mixed-Blooded “Acadian” Ancestry
...by Chris Boudreau (October 4, 2018)

This folder contains a copy of the “D/Sport” section of the Wednesday, February 27, 1980 issue of the Québec City, Québec newspaper entitled, “Le Soleil.” 

The importance of this document lies in an article entitled, “Ron LeFlore, parent éloigné de Lafleur?,” which was written by Claude Larochelle at the training camp of the “Montréal Expos” baseball team at Daytona Beach in Florida, United States of America. 

I won’t be discussing the author of this article, Claude Larochelle, as he is irrelevant to this summary however, I will provide you with some biographical information concerning the person of interest, Ron LaFlore. According to an online “Wikipedia” article entitled, “Ron LeFlore” (seehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_LeFlore), Mr. LeFlore was born on June 16, 1948 in Detroit, Michigan and was a Professional Baseball Player. This article also states the following concerning Mr. LeFlore: 

“… an American former Major League Baseball center fielder. He played six seasons with the Detroit Tigers before being traded to the Montreal Expos, retiring with the Chicago White Sox in 1982. He stole 455 bases in his career, and was an American League All-Star selection in 1976. 

A movie and book were made about his rise to the major leagues after being an inmate at the Jackson State Penitentiary. One in a Million: The Ron LeFlore Story was a made-for-television movie starring LeVar Burton that aired on CBS in 1978. LeFlore is the cousin of former MLB outfielder Todd Steverson…” 

Based on this information, we can conclude that Ron LeFlore was an American Professional Baseball Player, simple as that.  Now that we know a bit of information about Ron LeFlore, it’s time to begin our discussion concerning “Ron LeFlore, parent éloigné de Lafleur?” I’ve chosen to discuss only on excerpt from this article and I must emphasize that the information that I’ll now discuss isn’t “groundbreaking” by any means. Basically, this summary doesn’t contribute much to this collection, but serves to provide a “little break” from the seriousness of many of our recent summaries. That being said, this excerpt concerns Mr. LeFlore’s ancestry as he provided in an interview with the Author of this article, Claude Larochelle. This excerpt is as follows: 

“… Ron me confiait, hier midi, qu'un journaliste du Chicago Tribune avait employé plusieurs heures de recherches pour retrace les origines de sa famille et de ses ancêtres. 

“Suivant les recherches de ce journaliste, mes ancêtres viendraient probablement de l'Acadie mais il y aurait eu a l'origine du sang français et du sang indien. Par la suite mes ancêtres se seraient établis en Louisiane et dans le Mississipi.”…” 

This loosely translates to: 

“… Ron told me yesterday afternoon that a journalist from the Chicago Tribune had done hours of research to trace the origins of his family and his ancestors. 

“According to the research of this journalist, my ancestors would probably come from Acadia but there would have been originally French blood and Indian blood. Later my ancestors would have settled in Louisiana and Mississippi.”…” 

This excerpt is important for a couple of reasons, the first being that Ron LeFlore, a Professional Athlete discussed having mixed- “French” and “Indian” (First Nations) ancestry from Acadia. This is something that wasn’t really talked about publicly for many families in 1980 when the interview took place. 

The second importance of this excerpt is that it demonstrates that there were in fact, mixed-blooded “Acadians” who were deported from Acadia in the mid-eighteenth century. 

In conclusion, as I stated earlier in this summary, “Ron LeFlore, parent éloigné de Lafleur?” doesn’t really add any “groundbreaking” evidence to this collection. Rather, this excerpt serves to provide a “lighthearted” discussion after there being many recent difficult and somewhat “dark” discussions recently. There really is nothing more to say about this article than that.