Woonsocket Native Explores Family History

Woonsocket native Deborah Ann Dauray has written a provocative but academic history of the city’s Dauray family, Jeanne of the Ditch, tracing a trail of intrigue, betrayal, and conflict back to goldsmiths in medieval France.

The most notable Woonsocket resident to descend from the Dauray line, Monsignor Charles Casimir Dauray, founded and founded and presided over . Msgr. Dauray remained pastor of Precious Blood Church for fifty years.

Although much of the author's research reaches deep into the past, the contemporary, wealthy Daurays steal the show with their intrigue. Msgr. Dauray remained, for example, estranged from his physician brother, Dr. Joseph Dauray, perhaps as a rejection of Dr. Dauray’s separation from his wife. The Monsignor’s niece, Gabrielle Mee, meanwhile, became devoted to The Legion of Christ, described by the author as "cult-like" and blind to the pedophilia in its ranks, including that of its founder, Father Marcial Maciel Degollado. When Mee died in 2008, her will left what remained of her estate to the Legion of Christ when she had already given more than $7 million worth of cash and property to the controversial congregation. Much of this wealth had been the estate of her deceased husband, Timothy J. Mee, a director of Industrial National Bank, later Fleet Bank, then Bank of America.

While the book deals mostly with the affairs of Dauray’s most recent ancestors, Msgr. Dauray and Dr. Dauray, the will of Mrs. Mee and the controversy that led to its contest by the Dauray family, also interesting is Dauray’s research into extant public records and the etymology of the surnames involved. Recipes for tourtiers (meat-pie) and taffy; an exhumation of paranormal activity in ; Marie Rose Ferron, (Woonsocket’s very own stigmatic); the mysterious death and burial of Arthur Philias Dauray and other compelling matters of local lore are all explored.

Dauray says that the impetus for the book was her father’s failure to trace the family’s genealogy during a trip to the town of D’Auray in France. “He left France befuddled,” she says. Dauray started doing her own genealogical research, and found many contradictions to the previous book on her family: Quebec to New England: The Life of Monsignor Charles Dauray, by Ambrose Kennedy.

“The book by Ambrose Kennedy was proudly on display in our home...As I started researching, everything in that book fell apart. Obviously, Monsignor Dauray wanted only a certain version of his life known to the people of Woonsocket,” said Dauray.

“I always had a great curiosity about our family roots,” she added. “We grew up hearing the legends of our great-great uncle, the Monsignor Charles Dauray of Precious Blood Church, and about our not-so-spoken-about great-great-grandfather Dr. Joseph Dauray, one of the founding doctors of Woonsocket.”

Dauray was also inspired by the controversy surrounding the contested will of Gabrielle Mee.

“‘Aunt Gaby’ is what we called her. We spent many summer months visiting her in Weekapaug, Rhode Island, where she spent her summers with Uncle Tim Mee. With so much going on, we just want to get the story out. We want to get the truth out and let people evaluate it for themselves. This is not to tear down Monsignor Dauray.”

The book is self-published and available on E-Bay. Dauray hopes to begin selling the book on Amazon.com, and to have it conventionally published.