Paul McCue Books

Photos - Jacqui Pycroft.

François Deniset was born on 3 October 1917 into a large and talented French-Canadian family in Saint-Boniface, Manitoba, a French-speaking area of Winnipeg.  Deniset’s father had been born and raised in France, but on a trip to Saint-Boniface in 1911 he met and later married Rachel Bernier, a locally-born French-Canadian. After a honeymoon in Europe, the couple returned to and settled in Saint-Boniface, François senior becoming a naturalised Canadian citizen.  François (junior) was their eldest son and he had two bothers and three sisters. Tragically,his mother died in childbirth in 1920 and after his father remarried, to Hélène (also née Bernier), the family continued to grow and with the birth of three more children, Deniset gained a half-brother and two half-sisters. He attended the Jesuit Collège de Saint-Boniface, followed by the University of Montréal and a postgraduate course at the University of Manitoba where he studied economics and history in preparation for a planned career as a diplomat in the Canadian government’s Department of External Affairs.

After the outbreak of war, and probably partly spurred by his family’s remaining strong links with France, Deniset volunteered for the Canadian Army. He received a commission in the Royal Canadian Artillery and was sent with his unit to southern England in 1940...... [Remainder of case study is complete - contact author for further details].

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