Wellfleet's French Connection ...

Above, a photo of the Masonic Temple of the Adams Lodge's roof, in better weather. I do not know which Wellfleet structure was first built with a mansard roof but will try to find out. There are several in town. My mother thought workers from France were responsible. She had little French flags that she planted in conspicuous places for my bilingual, bi-cultural children, to make them feel at home during summer vacation. If they asked her, she would carry on about Wellfleet’s French connection, a group of immigrant workers, in town for construction of Guglielmo Marconi’s wireless station in South Wellfleet, where the first transatlantic message from the USA was sent to England’s king by Theodore Roosevelt in 1903. The French workers must have liked it here – who doesn’t? – because they left us at least three mansard-roofed houses. I always think of those French transplants when I pass what may have been their former homes. Yesterday, in front of Wellfleet Marketplace, I heard French. It sounded like real French, not Canadian. So I turned around and saw a couple, in their late twenties, with a seven-year-old, who happened to be tugging at his mother’s arm. “Bonjour!” I said, feeling gregarious, since they seemed a bit lost. “Vous êtes français? J’ai vecu 25 ans en France.” Our conversation proceeded, and it turned out they were in town for a few days, camping of all things. I gave them today's weather forecast, 3 to 5 inches of rain, which made them shrug their shoulders with resignation. I suggested the National History Museum in Brewster for their son as a daytime activity. They did not seem to realize how difficult the lendemain was going to be and did not write the name down. I said they should have booked rooms at Chez Sven – no, I didn’t. I told them to come back next year, when Wellfleet would have a real French restaurant, even a boulangerie, an unimaginable possibility when I was a young mother here in the summer thirty-five years ago. But I did feel sorry for the couple with the child. Camping in a hybrid hurricane cannot be fun….