In the video entitled Jack Kerouac’s Lowell, Massachusetts, also on this website, Roger Brunelle takes visitors to various places where Jack Kerouac and his family lived.

The video about Nashua presents Jack’s extended family, notably his grandparents, uncles and aunts. In Nashua, our guide is Rev. Stephen Edington, author of Kerouac’s Nashua Connection (Nashua: Transition Publishing, 1999). The book tells the story of the Kerouacs of Nashua notably pointing out the links between Jack's relatives and the characters he created in his books.

In both videos, Lowell's guided tour with Roger Brunelle and Steve Edington’s guided tour of Nashua, the Kirouac Family Association wants to keep on film for future generations their personal knowledge of the significant places in both towns for Jack’s extended family.



The Kirouac Family Association warmly thanks Rev. Stephen Edington for this guided tour of the Nashua of Jack’s extended family.

The Kirouac Family Association is most grateful to Rev. Stephen Edington for his remarkable guided tour of Jack Kerouac's Nashua. Many thanks also to Mr. Eric Waddell, responsible for organizing the Rencontre internationale Jack Kerouac, in Quebec City in October 1987, it was the only French-speaking international conference ever held. Many thanks to the founder of the Kirouac Family Association, Mr. Jacques Kirouac. This documentary was made possible thanks to the precious collaboration of each one mentioned.

Filming and Editing: François Kirouac

Photos: Francine and François Kirouac
All rights reserved

Copyright © 2015-2018-2022

Chapter 1: Saint-Louis-de-Gonzague Church, 48 West Hollis Street (duration: 4m. 54s.) Saint-Louis-de-Gonzague Church is the church where the parents of Jack Kerouac and five of his uncles and aunts got married. This is also where the funeral of Jack's father, Léo Kerouac, took place on May 20, 1946, as well as the funeral of Jack's daughter, Janet Michele in 1996. Here Reverend Edington gives a brief history of the place.

Chapter 2: The French-speaking enclaves of Nashua and the former offices of the Nashua Telegraph on the main street of Nashua in New Hampshire where Léo Kerouac, father of Jack was apprenticed in 1908 (duration: 6m. 12s.)Here, from a bridge located on the Nashua River, a tributary of the Merrimack River, very close to number 60 of the main street, Reverend Edington describes the two French-speaking districts of Nashua, Little Canada and the part called French Hill, where the uncle of Jack, Joseph Kerouac and his family. From this site on Main Street, one can see these two sectors of the city as well as the offices of the Nashua Telegraph where Léo Kerouac worked before settling in Lowell.

Chapter 3: House of Joseph Kerouac and Léontine Rouleau located at number 23, Cross Street (duration: 6m. 31s.) Here, Reverend Edington tells us about the man who was Uncle Mike in Doctor Sax and in Visions of Gerard, Joseph Kerouac. He and his wife lived in this house between 1917 and 1932.

Chapter 4: House of Jean-Baptiste Kerouac, grandfather of Jack and first of this line to arrive in Nashua from Saint-Hubert-de-Rivière-du-Loup. This house is located at number 16 rue Pierce (duration: 7m. 40s.) It was in this house, built by Jean-Baptiste Kerouac himself, that Jack's grandfather and his family lived in Nashua from 1892 to 1910. Here, Reverend Edington paints a picture of this family who left the Saint-Laurent valley to settle in New England.

Chapter 5: House where Gabrielle Lévesque (Jack's mother) resided, 101 Ash Street (duration: 5m. 21s.) It is at this address that Gabrielle Lévesque resided just before her marriage to Léo Kerouac in 1915. Reverend Edington makes here is a short biography of Jack's mother. He quotes the words the author himself uses in Desolation Angels when he mentions how his mother was treated by her aunts and uncles while residing here just before her wedding.

Chapter 6: Site of the L'Impartial newspaper from 1898 to 1963, 23 Elm Street (duration: 3m. 55s.) This is where Léo Kerouac, Jack's father, worked from 1909 to 1912. This building housed the offices of Nahua's French-language newspaper, L'Impartial. Subsequently, Leo worked for Lowell's newspaper, L'Étoile, which had just been purchased by the same owner as L'Impartial.

Chapter 7: Apartment house located at number 100 Main Street where Jack Kerouac's aunt, Louise Kerouac Michaud, lived (duration: 6m. 06s.)Jack Kerouac's aunt, Louise Kerouac Michaud, lived there at the time of death of Gérard, her brother, in June 1926. Louise also lived on this same street in three other places between 1910 and 1962, the date of her death. In her book Visions of Gerard, Louise was the character of Aunt Marie.

Chapter 8: House where Ernest Kerouac (Uncle Vincent in The Vanity of Duluoz) and his wife, Alice Chamberlain, lived, 27 1/2 Gilman Street (duration: 5m. 10s.) Here, Reverend Edington introduces us to the uncle of Jack Kerouac, Ernest Kerouac. To do this, he uses his writings in Vanity of Duluoz in which Jack reports, among other things, a conversation he had with his uncle after the death of his father Léo Kerouac in 1946. Ernest and his family lived at this address from 1912 to 1954.

Chapter 9: Park of our French Renaissance, Water Street United States (duration: 4m. 41s.) The Park of our French Renaissance in Nashua was inaugurated in 2001. It is a testimony of recognition to the French-Canadian presence in this New Hampshire town. It is not a site of the Kerouac family as such, but Reverend Edington includes it in his visit because this French-Canadian community, of which Jean-Baptiste Kerouac, Jack's grandfather, was a member, greatly contributed to the development of the city and the quality of life of its inhabitants.

Chapter 10: The “old” Saint-Louis-de-Gonzague cemetery in Nashua, 475 West Hollis Street (duration: 12m. 38s.) The Saint-Louis-de-Gonzague cemetery dates from 1880. It is here that several members of Jack Kerouac's family were buried. First, his father, Léo, his mother Gabrielle and his brother, Gérard. Jack's daughter, Jan, was also buried in 1996 in the same family plot. In this cemetery, we also find his uncle, Joseph and his wife, Léontine Rouleau; Rosanna Dumais, his godmother and wife of Jean-Baptiste Kerouac, son; his grandparents, Jean-Baptiste Kerouac and his wife, Clémentine Bernier as well as a few others. Here Reverend Edington reads passages from some of Jack's works: The Town and the City, Visions of Gerard, Vanity of Duluoz and Desolation Angels.