Joseph Desgroseilliers, Accidental Train Death

90 years ago today – on May 8, 1927 – Joseph Desgroseilliers was killed when his car was hit accidentally by a train. He was 59 years old. [1] He was a husband and a father, as well as a businessman and a pioneer of St-Charles, Ontario. [2]

Joseph was the eldest son of Pierre and Flavie (Lepage) Desgroseilliers, my maternal great-great-grandparents. He was born on 20 January 1868 in St-Chrysostome, Châteauguay County, Quebec. [2] An elder sister and eleven younger brothers (including my great-grandfather Albert) and sisters completed the family.

Joseph Desgroseilliers' death registration, top portion (Ancestry.ca)

Joseph Desgroseilliers' death registration, bottom portion (Ancestry.ca)

Joseph's death registration (bottom portion) gives the cause of death as “Accidental Automobile hit by train”. A local history book of St-Charles, Ontario where he lived, gives slightly more detail in French: “fut frappé par le train no 1, près de la gare de Warren” [was hit by the train no. 1, near the station of Warren]. [3]

Warren, Ontario

Joseph’s funeral took place in St-Charles’ parish cemetery on 11 May 1927. His brother Albert and his son-in-law Vital Brisson were present as witnesses. [4]

He was survived by his wife Azéline (née Lemieux) and their five surviving children, the youngest one being 13-year-old Lionel.

Photo credit:

Wikipedia contributors, "Markstay-Warren", Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Markstay-Warren&oldid=768725791 : accessed 7 May 2017).

Sources:

1. “Ontario, Canada, Deaths, 1869-1938, 1943-1944, and Deaths Overseas, 1939-1947”, digital images, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 7 May 2017), entry for Joseph De Groseilliers (written as Joseph De Groseilliers, indexed as Joseph De Grossillier), 8 May 1927; citing Archives of Ontario, Registrations of Deaths, 1869-1938; Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Archives of Ontario; microfilm series MS935, reel 350.

2. Lionel Séguin, Historique de la paroisse Saint-Charles (Saint-Charles, Ont., 1945: 231-232); digital images, Our Roots (http://www.ourroots.ca/ : accessed 18 June 2013).

3. St-Jean-Chrysostome (St-Chrysostome, Quebec), parish register, 1868, p. 2 verso, entry no. B.8, Joseph Desgroseilliers baptism, 21 January 1868; St-Chrysostome parish; digital images, “Quebec, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1968”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 7 May 2017).

4. Séguin, Historique de la paroisse Saint-Charles, 231.

5. St-Charles Boromée (St-Charles, Ontario), parish register, 1909-1967, p. 75 stamped, no entry no. (1927), Joseph Desgroseilliers burial, 11 May 1927; St-Charles Boromée parish; digital images, “Ontario, Canada, Catholic Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1747-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 7 May 2017).

Copyright © 2017, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Sunday’s Obituary: Célestin Desgroseilliers

Célestin Desgroseilliers passed away 58 years ago on 22 November 1957 in Ottawa, Ontario. [1] He was a younger brother of my maternal great-grandfather Albert Desgroseilliers. Célestin was born on 19 November 1881 in Embrun, Russell County, Ontario. He was the ninth child and sixth son of Pierre and Flavie (Lepage) Desgroseilliers.

In January 1904, Célestin married Fabiana Gauthier, by whom he had ten children. He and at least two of his brothers (Prospère and Albert) were tall men. He was a merchant in Sturgeon Falls and in Kapuskasing, Ontario before relocating to Ottawa in the mid-1950s.

Célestin died in hospital after a short illness. He was survived by his wife, 8 children, 16 grandchildren, and 5 great-grandchildren.

Source:

1. “Ontario, Canada, The Ottawa Journal (Birth, Marriage and Death Notices), 1885-1980”, digital images, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 21 November 2015), Celestin Desgroseilliers death notice; citing The Ottawa Journal, 23 November 1957, p. 24, col. 1; City of Ottawa Archive, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; database created from microfilm copies of the newspaper.

Copyright © 2015, Yvonne Demoskoff.

52 Ancestors: #33 Flavie Lepage

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 33rd week of this challenge, I chose Flavie Lepage (1847-1906).

Flavie is my maternal great-great-grandmother and is number 25 in my ancestor list.

Born on 1 December 1847 in St-Constant, Laprairie County, Quebec, Flavie was the eldest of the fourteen children of Narcisse and Flavie (Moquin) Lepage. [1] By the time she married Pierre Desgroseilliers on 7 November 1865, [2] Flavie’s mother had eleven children, and would go on to have three more.

Flavie fille was used to moving from town to town from a young age. Before she married, she, her parents and her siblings lived in three different locations in Laprairie and Châteauguay Counties in southwestern Quebec. After her marriage, Flavie, her husband and their children lived in five different communities in Quebec and Ontario, including Montreal’s Hochelaga district in the early 1890s. [3]

Birds eye view city of Montreal 1889.

Like her mother, Flavie gave birth to a large family – thirteen children – over the course of 24 years. Two died as infants, son Albert in 1873 and daughter Elodia (Azilda) in 1886. The children who reached adulthood and married were Philomème, Joseph, Narcisse, Emma, Euphémie, Prosper, Albert (my great-grandfather), Célestin, Ovide, Dorilla and Marie Célanise.

While taking care of her large brood, Flavie was also godmother to at least six children. Four were her own grandchildren, while the other two were her youngest brother and her husband’s niece.

Flavie’s date of death is a bit of a mystery. Depending on the source, she died on 30 March 1906 [4] or on 1 August 1906 in St-Charles, Ontario. [5] I didn’t find her burial information when I looked at the parish records of St-Charles, Ontario, using Ancestry.ca’s “Ontario, Canada, Catholic Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1747-1967” database. (St-Charles’ records begin in 1905, but they are unfortunately incomplete.) I also searched for her death registration at Ancestry.ca, but couldn’t locate it in the “Ontario, Canada, Deaths, 1869-1938 and Deaths Overseas, 1939-1947” database. Last, I was unsuccessful at finding her death record when I viewed the relevant microfilms at the Archives of Ontario this past May.

Image credit: Library and Archives Canada, online MIKAN no. 4137889.

Sources:

1. St-Constant (St-Constant, Quebec), parish register, 1847, p. 28 recto, entry no. B.126, Flavie LePage [sic] baptism, 2 December 1847; St-Constant parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 11 August 2007).

2. St-Chrysostôme (St-Chrysostôme, Quebec), parish register, 1865, p. 27 verso, entry no. M.26, Desgroseilliers – Lepage marriage, 7 November 1865; St-Chrysostôme parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 24 August 2007).

3. “Lovell’s Montreal Directory, For 1891-92 […]”; digital image, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (http://bibnum2.banq.qc.ca/bna/lovell/index.html : accessed 27 April 2012), 483, “Pierre Desgroseillier [sic]”. Pierre resided at 51 rue Davidson; he was a laborer.

4. St Charles Cemetery (Dunnet Township), digital images (http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~murrayp/sudbury/st_char/public/page0002.htm : accessed 10 August 2014), photograph, grave marker for Flavie Lepage, St-Charles, Ontario. To view Flavie’s gravemarker, click on image “desgros1”.

5. Lionel Séguin, Historique de la paroisse Saint-Charles (Saint-Charles, Ont., 1945: 232); digital images, Our Roots (http://www.ourroots.ca/ : accessed 18 June 2013).

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.