“Family of crossword designers” in 10 letters. Solution: Hannequart

For almost 70 years, the Hannequart family has been having their way in the daily life of people by signing the crossword grids of most of the largest French -speaking publications in the country. This time, it is the Hannequart who invite you in their privacy, to their home in Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville.

The door ajar, Étienne Hannequart-Ferron, the new president of Hannequart editions, hardly retains Achilles and Luka, the two Goldendoodles of his parents, Martine Ferron and Michel Hannequart. Do you like dogs?he ensures, before freeing them.

At first glance, nothing suggests that this residence is a lair of verbicrucists-the name given to crossword designers-until the artifacts come one by one of the basement of the house, in a way the headquarters of the family business.

That [un chandail]it’s the supergril that my father [Maurice Hannequart] invented for The Presseproudly explains Michel Hannequart, a second generation Verbicrucist and the family of the family. The cruciverbists – the name that we give to lovers of crosswords – who completed the flawless supergrile received this t-shirt And gift.

At the table, Nicole Hannequart, Michel’s sister, also a second generation Verbicrucist, opens a small red notebook in which her father wrote the short definitions of her crosswords by hand. These are fliesshe points out to the rest of the family, who marvels in front of the relic.

Inheritance crosswords

It all starts with the late Maurice Hannequart, the first cruciverbist of the family.

Crosswords arrive a little by chance in the life of this man of letters, born in France. To avoid doing his military service, he left France towards his majority and settled in Quebec, where he works as a journalist for the Women’s Journal.

One day, an editor asked him if he knows a crossword designer. He who had filled so many grids with his mother in his youth made tests at home, then proposes to do the work.

Quickly, he accumulated contracts, especially for the weekly Hello Police.

He makes calculations, he realizes that he can live with them and leaves his job.

We are in October 1957.

At that time, conceiving crossword grids had no name. The word Verbicrucist appeared later. However, it was a full -fledged profession, with which came A monk schedule For Maurice Hannequart, explains her daughter Nicole, considered as family memory.

He moved to his office at 7:30 a.m. and at noon right, he got out of it. The meal was to be on the table. If the meal was ready in advance, my mother [Madeleine Hannequart] ensured that it remains hot until noonnotes Nicole Hannequart. Without his wife, his father would not have had the career he had, she insists.

Difficult, too, to get him out of his office before time. As proof, when Madeleine, in contractions, asked her to drive her to the hospital to give birth to her third and last child, he replied Not before I finish my crosswordtells Nicole, in front of the family who heard this anecdote told by the youngest itself.

Unlike today, no way to work in the waiting room of a hospital, laptops and the Internet did not exist. Everything was done by hand: the solutions were noted in pen – often by Madeleine – and the boxes, painted with a brush in China ink.

All children, we were fascinated to see [papa] TO DO. He painted black boxes while listening to classical music. It was a gift for him, this moment.

New technologies have never seduced the patriarch, which has designed its crosswords on His typewriter until the end. It was a Swiss Hermes brand machineadds in polyphony the family, amused by the character that was Mauritius.

A contagious passion

Nicole Hannequart, the first of the siblings to have followed her father’s footsteps, can understand it. I loved it [faire des mots croisés à la main]. It was a bit like playing scrabbleshe launches.

From his 10 years, his father entrusted him with mysterious words of words, Large fashion in the late 1960s. But it was only in his majority, discouraged by a strike during her studies in university literature, that she made her job and began to make the gates of the gates Hello police, followed by those of News, of The Presse and ofEcho Stars.

We didn’t even have television at home, and I was making crosswords on TV personalities, imagineshe laughs.

His brother, Michel Hannequart, was slow to embark on the gates.

I didn’t want to know anything about crosswords. I wanted to be a photographer or cameraman.

Then arrived unemploymenthe said, smile in the corner, in front of the accomplices of the family. He finally resigned himself to working for the family business. In the mid -1990s, his spouse, Martine Ferron, a lawyer by trade, left the bar for tileslikes to say Michel.

The family’s digital turn begins at the same time, encouraged by Nicole, when she has to send her brother her grids for a long trip to Europe. After all, more and more press publishers are asking that the crosswords be delivered to them, no longer by hand, but by email.

The new generation

Crosswords have always been one of our livesunderlines Étienne Hannequart-Ferron, third generation verbicrucist.

Like his father, Michel, he did not aspect to do this job one day. Shortly after his majority, not knowing too much to which career to go, a friend suggested to him to embark on the grids.

Here is the scene: he came back from the coffee with his friend, and he said to me: “Dad, give me crosswords to do.”

He never looked back.

The Hannequart digital turn is then complete: unlike its predecessors, Étienne has never designed a grid in hand. He has always used the digital bank of his family’s crossword definitions, set up at the turn of the millennium, and which today has some 800,000 admissions.

Grandpa, he did not make half of the grids I makehe evaluates. Today he signs the grids of Dutyof The Presse one you Montreal Journalamong others.

His spouse, Gabrielle Marcoux, former lawyer, has passed from cruciverbist to Verbicruciste, and takes care of the arrow words of the arrow words Journal. She also has ideas of greatness for the Hannequart editions website, which she wishes to see better reflect family history and their profession like no other.

Yvonne Hannequart, 18, discreetly joined the table during the interview. This summer, she takes care of the junior grids of The Pressehis first contract. This makes her the fourth generation of Verbicrucist from the Hannequart family.

She is very talentedlaunches the table in unison.

Yvonne does not yet know if she will continue in this way, since she will be on the benches of Cégep in September to study art, then teaching at university.

Fears about AI

When talking about the future, the tone suddenly becomes more serious at the table. The profession of cruciverbist is not immune to progress in generative artificial intelligence (AI).

Nicole Hannequart refuses to be tempted, especially for environmental reasons. Michel Hannequart sometimes uses it to draw inspiration from definitions, he admits. But never to do all the workhe insists.

Étienne Hannequart-Ferron says he concernedbut remains convinced of the brand’s added value compared to the machine.

What we can do is to arrange to be irreplaceable […] And try to keep the human side.

The Hannequart coloraccording to the family, it is the rigor, the difficulty of their grids and their twisted and enigmatic side. One of its specialties is also based on references to Quebec culture and its ability to adapt to contemporary realities and vocabulary.

And artificial intelligence would not be able to create wacky definitions with as much pleasure as those offered by Hannequart. A definition that I am often told by is a magnificent first name. The answer was Étiennetells, laughing Etienne Hannequart-Ferron.

Sometimes I hear Michel laughing in the other room. This is where I know he found a good oneexploded Martine Ferron.