52 Ancestors: #12 Olivine Hotte – Timeline of Her Life

Amy Johnson Crow at No Story Too Small has issued herself and her readers a challenge for 2014. It’s called “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks”, and as Amy explains, the challenge is to “have one blog post each week devoted to a specific ancestor. It could be a story, a biography, a photograph, an outline of a research problem — anything that focuses on one ancestor”.

For the 12th week of this challenge (already 3 months!), I chose my maternal great-grandmother Olivine Hotte (1877-1926).

Olivine seems to have had a fairly typical French-Canadian, Roman Catholic life for one who was born in the 19th century. She lived at home until she married, had a large brood of children, followed her husband when he moved briefly to the U.S.A. and then back to Canada. (I wrote about this move in her husband’s story last week, which can be read here.) Olivine gave birth to her last children (twin boys) in 1921 and died, sadly, when they were only five years old, in 1926.

Timeline of Olivine Hotte

Childhood Years

10 Jan 1877 – Olivine Hotte is born in Hartwell (now Chénéville), Papineau County, Quebec. She is the eighth of eleven children of Louis Hotte and his wife Marguerite Lacasse.

15 Jan 1877 – Olivine is baptised in St-Félix-de-Valois R.C. church in Chénéville.

4 Apr 1881 – Olivine, her parents and her siblings appear on the 1881 census, residing in Chénéville.

23 Jun 1891 – Olivine, her parents and her siblings appear on the 1891 census, residing in Chénéville.

Married Years

16 Aug 1897 – Olivine marries Joseph Beauvais in Chénéville.

8 Jun 1898 – Olivine’s first child, son Ovide, is born in Chénéville.

Between 8 Jun 1898 and 25 Nov 1899 – Olivine, her husband and their young son move to Tupper Lake, Franklin County, New York, USA.

25 Nov 1899 – Olivine’s second child, son Oscar, is born in Tupper Lake.

1 Jun 1900 – I haven’t located Olivine and her family in Franklin County, New York on the 1900 U.S. census. It’s possible that they have already returned to Canada by this date.

Between 25 Nov 1899 and 31 Mar 1901 – Olivine and her family return to live in Chénéville.

31 Mar 1901 – Olivine, Joseph, and their two young sons appear on the 1901 census, residing in Chénéville.

30 Jun 1901 – Olivine’s third child, daughter Juliette, is born in Chénéville. (Juliette is my grandmother.)

Between 1 Jul 1901 and 30 Jan 1903 – Olivine, Joseph and their family move to Montpellier, near Chénéville.

30 Jan 1903 – Olivine’s, fourth child, daughter Marie-Louise, is born in Montpellier.

16 Aug 1905 – Olivine’s fifth child, son Aldège, is born in Montpellier.

4 Jan 1907 – Olivine’s sixth child, son Léger, is born in Montpellier.

3 Apr 1907 – Olivine’s mother Marguerite dies in Chénéville.

31 Jul 1907 – Olivine and Joseph are godparents to Oscar Pilon, his sister Odile (Beauvais) Pilon’s two-day old son, in Chénéville.

16 Mar 1908 – Olivine’s seventh child, son Romuald, is born in Montpellier.

7 Apr 1910 – Olivine’s eighth child, son Emile, is born in Montpellier.

17 June 1911 – Olivine, Joseph and their family appear on the 1911 census, residing in Chénéville.

17 Sep 1911 – Olivine’s ninth child, son Martial, is born in Montpellier.

26 Jan 1913 – Olivine’s tenth child, son Réal, is born in Montpellier. (Réal would later be my mother’s godfather.)

About Jun 1914 – Olivine’s, eleventh child, son Aurèle, is born in Montpellier. He was baptised between 28 May and 14 July 1914. (The record omits his date of baptism, but states that he was born the previous day.)

22 Aug 1916 – Olivine’s twelfth child, son Joseph, is born, in Montpellier.

3 Mar 1918 – Olivine’s thirteenth child, daughter Agathe, is born in Montpellier.

9 Aug 1919 – Olivine’s fourteenth child, daughter Laurette, is born in Montpellier.

7 Jun 1920 – Olivine’s eldest child Ovide marries Lucienne Duchesne in Sturgeon Falls, Nipissing District, Ontario. He is the first of her children to marry.

1 May 1921 – Olivine’s fifteenth and sixteenth children, fraternal twin sons Jean-Marie and Jean-Paul, are born in Montpellier. They are the last of Olivine’s children.

1 Jun 1921 – Olivine, Joseph and their family appear on the 1921 census, residing in Chénéville.

Later Years and Death

13 Aug 1921 – Olivine becomes a grandmother for the first time when her son Ovide’s wife gives birth to their first child, son Conrad.

5 Oct 1922 – Olivine’s second child, son Oscar, marries Rosa Robillard in Montpellier. Her husband Joseph is present at the ceremony.

Between Oct 1922 and Aug 1925 – Olivine, Joseph and their younger children move to Moonbeam, Cochrane District, Ontario.

20 Dec 1923 – Olivine’s father Louis dies in Chénéville. It’s possible that Olivine, Joseph and their family have already moved to northern Ontario, because Joseph does not appear among the list of men who were present two days later at his father-in-law’s funeral.

18 Aug 1925 – Olivine’s eldest daughter Juliette marries Eugène Desgroseilliers in Moonbeam. After the ceremony, she and Joseph are photographed with the newlyweds and their in-laws.

4 Jun 1926 – Olivine dies in Moonbeam. Cause of death: cardiac asthenia.

27 Jun 1926 – Olivine’s funeral takes place in Moonbeam. (Three weeks is a long interval between one’s death and burial. Olivine's death registration does not indicate that an autopsy took place. I wonder if that length of time was to allow family members to gather for her funeral?)

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.