Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - What Did Your Mother Love To Do?

Randy at Genea-Musings has issued his weekly Saturday challenge to his readers.

Today’s mission is to write about what “your mother really like to do in her work or spare time? Did she have hobbies, or a workshop, or did she like cooking, or reading, or watching TV?”.

Work

Mom was a young teenager when she started working in the late 1940s. After attending high school for a few weeks, she realized it would be too difficult for her recently widowed father (who was out-of-work at the time) to pay for her expenses, like clothes, supplies, and bus fare. Her elder sister Madeleine helped her get her first job working in the cafeteria of the Polymer Plant in Blue Water, near Sarnia, Ontario. She eventually moved up to waitress in the Plant’s restaurant and even worked banquets there on occasion.

A couple of years later, Mom and her friend Irene (sister of her future brother-in-law) moved to London, Ontario. They rented a small apartment and found work as waitresses. Mom doesn’t remember the name of the restaurant, but told me it was classy and on one of the main streets in London.

As an adult, Mom enjoyed being a waitress and was good at it. She was proud of how many plates of food she could balance on her arms as she brought orders to customers’ tables. She used to tell me that a good waitress always knew what the soup of the day was and what the specials were. She was trained to never return to the kitchen empty-handed. In later years, as a customer, she would always tut-tut whenever she noticed a waitress walk past a table that needed attention.

Mom was mostly at home in the 1960s when my sister and I were younger. But when I was about 10 or 11, Mom decided to work. Dad didn't make big wages (“des grandes gages”, as Mom used to say in French) as a welder, so it was a way for her to make some money and to keep busy during the day when my sister and I were in school. She walked in at the A&P grocery store in town and asked if there was an opening. She didn't have experience, but wanted to try working in the meat department. She was just an assistant to the butcher, but found she liked learning about different cuts of meat and other similar details. I liked that Mom worked, because it meant that I ate my lunch at school (I brown-paper bagged it), instead of having to trek to and from home and back to school in less than an hour.

Around the time my brother Raymond was born in 1970, Mom sold Avon products door-to-door. I’m not sure how she got into that, but my Aunt Joan (Dad’s sister) also sold Avon. I remember keeping Mom company once or twice on her rounds. It was fun to see (and try out) all the beauty products that were stored in her blue sales rep bag. As a pre-teen, I especially liked the mini lipsticks and perfumes.

Play

Mom’s favorite activity was (and is) playing cards with friends and family. She was about 12 years old when her new brother-in-law Jack (her sister Mariette’s husband) taught her to play poker for pennies.

Her two favorite games are Poker and “May I”, a variation of rummy. When the family gets together for cards, we seem to talk as much as we play. If we chat too much, though, Mom taps the table with a coin and tells us to get back to the cards, saying, “Are we here to talk or to play cards?”

When Mom was in her 60s, she suffered two strokes. In time, she recovered and after a few months, resumed her favorite pastime of playing cards, which she did with barely any cognitive difficulty.

After we moved to British Columbia in 1979, Mom and Dad started going to bingo games in Washington State, about 2 hours south of where we live in Canada. They typically drove to Lynden, Ferndale, or Bellingham on Friday nights. Mom had to watch Dad’s bingo cards as well as her own, because he tended to nod off. I don’t think Mom ever won much at bingo, but Dad won about $2300 one year.

I almost forgot to mention that Mom also loved to go to casinos in Reno and Las Vegas. She and Dad would drive there or she and her sisters Madeleine and Simone would fly or take a bingo bus to Nevada.

Mom turns 85 this summer and doesn’t show any sign of slowing down at cards. She’s a real trouper!

Copyright © 2018, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- How Did Your Parents Meet?

It’s Saturday (well, now it’s Sunday – I’m a day late) and Randy at Genea-Musings has issued his weekly challenge to his readers.

Tonight’s challenge is to answer the following question: "How Did Your Parents Meet?”

My parents Maurice Belair and Jacqueline Desgroseilliers and their families lived in Blue Water, a village that no longer exists next to Sarnia, Ontario.

They first met in about 1951. Mom was about 17 years old and Dad was about 23.

Dad was unemployed, but Mom worked at Scripnick Deluxe Confectionery in Blue Water. He used to drop in there, but didn’t notice Mom. One day, though, he did and after that, he regularly visited the store. Dad would chat with Mom while she worked at the lunch counter.

Eventually he asked her out on a date. I don’t know how their courtship progressed, but I remember Mom telling me that Dad got along well with her family, especially with her father, Eugène.

After dating for a few years, Mom gave Dad an ultimatum. They married soon after on December 18, 1954 in a civil ceremony in Sarnia. They didn’t have much money, so didn’t really have a honeymoon. Instead, they drove to northeastern Ontario to tell her father (he lived with his elder daughter Madeleine in Kirkland Lake) and his parents (Dad’s family lived in Timmins).

Mom and Dad celebrated their 41st wedding anniversary in 1995. Dad passed away five months later, but Mom is still with us.

Copyright © 2017, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Sentimental Sunday: Remembering Eugene

Today is the 115th anniversary of the birth of my maternal grandfather, Eugène Desgroseilliers. The eldest child of Albert and Clémentine (Léveillé) Desgroseilliers, he was born in St. Charles, a village south of Sudbury, Ontario on 30 August 1900.

I don’t have a picture of my Pépère and I, so I chose one of him with some of his daughters. From left to right are Jeanne d’arc, Jacqueline (my Mom), Eugène, and Madeleine. The photo was taken in Blue Water, outside of Sarnia, Ontario, in the summer of 1959.

I don’t have memories of my grandfather, because he died when I was two years old. Mom used to tell me how, when we’d visit him, he rock me on his knee and call me his “p’tite poule noire” (little black chicken), because of my dark hair and eyes.

Copyright © 2015, Yvonne Demoskoff.

In Memoriam: Mariette White

Today – 17 February 2014 – marks the sixth anniversary of my Aunt Mariette’s passing. She was 80 years old, a widow, and survived by her seven children, and many grand- and great-grandchildren.

Mariette, my mother’s eldest sister, was born on 18 December 1927 at home in Hearst, Ontario, Canada. She was the second, but eldest surviving, child of her parents, Eugène and Juliette (Beauvais) Desgroseilliers.

Mariette, about 1936

During her early years, her father Eugène worked as chief of police in Hearst. He made a comfortable living, and was able to buy such luxuries as a piano for his children. He was also able to afford to send his elder daughters Mariette, Madeleine and Simone to the Académie Sainte-Marie, in Haileybury, Ontario, to be educated as boarding students by the Soeurs de l'Assomption de la Sainte Vierge.

About 1935, the family moved to northeastern Quebec. Life was good until about 1938 or 1939, when my grandfather Eugène became seriously ill with double pneumonia. He was unable to work for months, and ultimately lost his position as chief of police. Faced with unemployment, he moved his family to Ontario and found work as a guard in Nobel, just outside Parry Sound.

In the summer of 1942, the family relocated again, this time to Blue Water, a tiny community next to Sarnia, Ontario. It was here, in the mid-1940s, that Mariette met John (Jack) White, whom she married. They had three sons and four daughters.

I met my Aunt when I was very little, because my parents travelled to Sarnia at least twice when I was a toddler. But, I don’t remember anything of those visits. The next time I saw Aunt Mariette, I was a teenager. My parents and I (I don’t remember if my sister and brother were with us) were in Sarnia and visited her home. We walked into the living room where she and my cousins had gathered. As soon as I saw my Aunt, I was amazed at how much she and my Mom looked alike. I had, of course, seen photos of her over the years, but I had never really noticed this striking resemblance. Seeing her in person made such a difference, too. Mariette was a very beautiful woman, and with her dark looks, reminded me of actress Loretta Young.

Mariette (left) with her sister Jacqueline, 1974

I wish I had a better chance to know my Aunt and my cousins (actually all of my Sarnia relatives), but we lived so far apart from each other, and visits were, unfortunately, infrequent.

You are still loved and missed today, Aunt Mariette.

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Friday Photo: Clementine at a funeral

On the first two Fridays of each month, I showcase a family photo and answer the “who, what, when, where and why” of that picture. The first week’s Friday photo is taken from my side of the family and the second week’s Friday photo is chosen from my husband’s side of the family. (I got the idea for this column from Amy Coffin’s ebook The Big Genealogy Blog Book advertised on her The We Tree Genealogy Blog.)



Clémentine Desgroseilliers, Blue Water, Ontario, 1948

Who:
My maternal great-grandmother Clémentine (Léveillé) Desgroseilliers (1878-1969).

What:
Clémentine Desgroseilliers posed for a photo at the time of the death and funeral of her daughter-in-law Juliette. Her eldest son Eugène Desgroseilliers was left a widower with seven children when Juliette died of cancer on 14 August 1948.

When:
The photo was taken on or about the day of Juliette’s funeral on 17 August 1948. Her obituary appeared in the local newspaper.

Where:
Presumably at Eugène’s house (not seen in the photo) in Blue Water, near Sarnia, Lambton County, Ontario. One of Sarnia’s many oil refineries can be seen in the background.

Why:
Family and friends gathered for the funeral of Juliette Desgroseilliers, my maternal grandmother.

This picture is an important one in my family’s photo collection. It is a favorite of mine; not only is it a visual record of a time of sadness, it is also a record of a mother’s love and devotion for her bereaved son and his children. (Clémentine travelled from her home in northeastern Ontario to be with her son Eugène, who lived in southwestern Ontario.)

Copyright © 2013, Yvonne Demoskoff.

In Memoriam: Eugène Desgroseilliers

Early Life

Eugène Desgroseilliers, my maternal grandfather, was born on 30 August 1900 in St-Charles, Ontario. He was his parents Albert and Clémentine (Léveillé) Desgroseilliers’ first child. Eugène, the eldest of 14 children, had ten brothers and three sisters. His youngest sibling, Joseph, was only two years old when Eugène married in 1925.

Eugène with his younger brother Arthur and sister Alma, about 1907.

Eugène grew up in St-Charles, which had been carved out of the forest wilderness south of Sudbury after the CPR railway opened up the region in the 1880s-1890s. Eugène’s father Albert supported his family as farmer; they lived for a while on lot 9, concession 2. When Eugène was about 17 years old, the family moved to Moonbeam in northeastern Ontario, where some of his relatives lived.

Marriage and Family

In Moonbeam, Eugène met and courted a young woman named Juliette Beauvais, whom he married in the local Roman Catholic church on 18 August 1925. The couple were a visual contrast: he was tall (6’7”), she was short (5’2”). Juliette was so petite at her marriage that Eugène could wrap his hands around her tiny waist.

Eugène and Juliette had nine children: a son Noël Xavier (born and died on Christmas Day 1926), followed by five daughters (Mariette, Madeleine, Simone, Marianne, and Jacqueline), then a son (Gaston), and then two more daughters (Normande and Jeanne d’arc). Sadly, Marianne died in 1938 when she was six years old following an appendicitis attack, while Gaston died in 1941 of his injuries after falling out of a moving car; he was only six years old. My mother and her sisters say that their father never really recovered from the loss of his son Gaston.

Eugène and Juliette on their wedding day with their parents, 1925.

When he married, Eugène was a farmer in Moonbeam, but after moving to Hearst in 1927, he became the town’s chief of police. (My Mom doesn’t know what qualifications her father had in order to do police work, but believes he was chosen for the job because of his imposing height.)

For the next few years, Eugène served as chief of police in Hearst, and then transferred to Rouyn and later Duparquet and Cadillac, all in northwestern Quebec. With regular employment during the Depression, Eugène provided well for his family, and was able to afford such luxuries as a piano and boarding (convent) school education for his elder daughters. He was known for his generous nature, giving food and money to the poor who came knocking at his door.

Eugène when chief of police, 1930s.

Difficult Years

About 1940, Eugène became ill with double pneumonia and lost his job as police chief. The family returned to live in Ontario, where Eugène worked for a short time in an explosives and munitions factory near Parry Sound. By 1942, the family settled in Blue Water, a village near Sarnia, Ontario. Eugène then worked sporadically as a carpenter, but the family was very poor and there was little money.

The family suffered another tragedy when Juliette was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 1948. She died after a short illness that August. Eugène was left alone to raise his family. The youngest daughters continued with school, but the eldest ones had jobs or were married. (My mother regretted having to quit high school to find work soon after her mother died, because her father couldn’t afford the fees.)

Final Days

Eugène with his daughters (left to right) Jeanne d'arc, Jacqueline
and Madeleine, Blue Water, Ontario, 1959.

In the summer of 1960, Eugène told his daughter Jacqueline that he was ill. He did not know it at the time, but he had cancer. Eugène died on 20 September 1960, having just turned 60 years old. His funeral took place three days later at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Blue Water. 

My Memories

I don’t really remember my grandfather, even though I visited him on a couple of occasions when I was a toddler. I’m told that he would rock me on his knees and call me his “p’tite poule noire” (little black chicken) because of my dark brown hair and eyes.

Copyright © 2012, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Sentimental Sunday: Juliette and her daughters



Juliette, Mariette and Jacqueline Desgroseilliers

Whenever I look at this photo of my grandmother Juliette with her daughters Mariette (left) and my mom Jacqueline (right), I have mixed emotions.

On one hand, I feel happy because all three are smiling and enjoying each other’s company.

But on the other hand, I feel sad, because this was probably one of the last pictures taken of my grandmother.

Juliette, husband Eugène and their six daughters (Mariette, Madeleine, Simone, Jacqueline, Normande and Jeanne d’arc) lived in Blue Water, a village next door to Sarnia, Ontario, where the photo was taken in 1945 or 1946.

Not long after this photo was taken, Juliette died of cancer in August 1948. She was only 47 years old.

Copyright © 2012, Yvonne Demoskoff.