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| (Front of card) |
This funeral card was printed to the “pious memory” of Reverend Charles-Eugène Thériault. It measures about 10.5 cm x 5.5 cm (4 ¼” x 2 ¼”). My Aunt Joan (Dad’s sister) gave the card to me when I visited her home in May 2014.
Father Thériault was ordained a priest in September 1910 and was immediately assigned to Cobalt, a mining town in Ontario. Two year later, the Bishop sent him further north, to Timmins, where he became that community’s first resident priest in October 1912. While here, Father Thériault was instrumental in building churches (like St. Anthony’s Cathedral) and schools (like my future elementary school St-Charles). In 1940, he was transferred to Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes church in another part of town. (I was baptised at Notre-Dame in 1958; it was my parish for ten years.)
Suffering from a kidney ailment in the mid-1950s, Father Thériault sought treatment at a Montreal hospital. Sadly, he died there on 1 May 1956.
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| (Back of Card) |
Sixty years have passed since Father Thériault’s death. One place in particular keeps his memory alive in Timmins – my high school. Opened in 1972, the new building was named Ecole Secondaire Thériault (later, Ecole Secondaire Catholique Thériault) in his honour.
Copyright © 2016, Yvonne Demoskoff.
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