Church Record Sunday: Desgroseilliers – Léveillé 1899 Marriage Record

My maternal great-grandparents Albert Desgroseilliers and Clémentine Léveillé married 117 years ago today.

Desgroseilliers - Léveillé marriage record (Généalogie Québec)

Albert, a younger son of Pierre and Flavie (Lepage) Desgroseilliers, was born in February 1879. His bride Clémentine, a younger daughter of Joseph and Cordélia (Racette) Léveillé, was slightly older: she was born in November 1878. The young couple were distantly related: Albert was Clémentine’s fifth cousin three times removed.

Albert, a farmer, and Clémentine married on 24 April 1899 in Limoges (known as South Indian, at this time) in Russell County, Ontario. [1] Father Joseph-Hercule Touchette celebrated the nuptial mass.

The marriage record (above) reads in French:

Le vingt quatre Avril, mil huit-cent quatre-vingt / dix neuf, vu la dispense de deux bans de mariage, ac- / cordée par nous, en vertu d’un pouvoir, à nous accor- / dé par Sa Grandeur Monseigneur J.T. Duhamel / Archevêque d’Ottawa, après la publication d’un / ban de mariage, faite au prône de nos messes parois- / siales entre Albert Desgroseilliers, fils majeur de Pierre / Desgroseilliers, cultivateur, et de Philenis Lepage / de cette mission, d’une part, et Clémentine / Léveillé, fille mineure de Joseph Léveillé / journalier et de Cordélia Racette de cette mission / d’autre part; ne s’etant découvert aucun empêchement / nous soussigné, curé de cette mission avons reçu leur mutu- / el consentement de mariage, et leur avons donné la bénédic- / tion nuptiale en presence de: [Rodrigue?] Laframboise et / Viateur Godard. [signed J.H. Touchette Ptre]

My English translation:

The twenty fourth April, one thousand eighty / nine, considering the dispensation of two banns of marriage, ac- / corded to us, in virtue of the power, to us accor- / ded by His Most Reverend J.T. Duhamel / Archbishop of Ottawa, after the publication of one / bann of marriage, stated at the sermons of mass of our parish / between Albert Desgroseilliers, son of age of Pierre / Desgroseilliers, farmer, and of Philenis Lepage / of this mission, on the one part, and Clémentine / Léveillé, minor daughter of Joseph Léveillé / day labourer and of Cordélia Racette of this mission / on the other part; not having found any impediment / we undersigned, curate of this mission have received their mutu- / al consent of marriage, and have given the nuptial blessing / in presence of: [Rodrigue?] Laframboise and / Viateur Godard. [signed J.H. Touchette Priest]

Source:

1. St-Viateur (Limoges, Ontario), parish register, 1897-1910, p. 18 (stamped), entry no. M.1 (1899), Albert Desgroseilliers – Clémentine Léveillé marriage, 24 April 1899; St-Viateur parish; digital images, “Registres du Fonds Drouin”, Généalogie Québec (http://www.genealogiequebec.com : accessed 4 July 2014).

Copyright © 2016, Yvonne Demoskoff.

52 Ancestors: #35 Cordélia Racette

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 35th week of this challenge, I chose Cordélia Racette (1849-1928).

Cordélia is my maternal great-great-grandmother and is number 27 in my ancestor list.

Cordélia (Racette) Léveillé

Born on 11 November 1849, Marie Delphine Cordélie Racette was baptized the next day in St-Pierre-du-Portage parish church in L’Assomption, L’Assomption County, Quebec. [1]

Known by her third name, Cordélia was the eldest daughter among the six sons and four daughters of Joseph Racette and his wife Marcelline Gagnon.

In about 1856, the Racette family left their home in L’Assomption County for Russell County, Ontario, where the younger children were born.

Cordélia married her third cousin Joseph Léveillé, a widower, on an autumn day in 1870. I wrote last week about how I haven’t been able to locate the exact date and place of their wedding through civil registration or sacramental records; see 52 Ancestors: #34 Joseph Léveillé.

With her marriage, Cordélia became stepmother to Joseph’s six year old daughter Adeline. For the next twenty-four years, she also became mother to her own brood of eleven children – four sons and seven daughters, including my great-grandmother Clémentine. The youngest child in the family, Eugène, was born in 1896 when Cordélia was 47 years old.

In June 1921, Cordélia and Joseph made their final appearances on a federal Canadian census. They lived in Russell County on their farm in the village of Limoges (known as South Indian at this time), with their daughter Adélaïde, their housekeeper. [2]

After Joseph’s death in late 1922, Cordélia went to live with her younger son Louis in Eastview, now part of Ottawa. She died there at home on 86 Cedar Street on 17 December 1928. [3]

Louis was the informant on his mother’s death registration. Interestingly, he gave Cordélia’s date of birth as 10 October 1849, four weeks earlier than the date seen in her baptism record. The cause of death was endocarditis chronic of three months duration. [4]

Cordélia’s funeral took place in St-Charles church in Eastview, followed by burial in Limoges. [5] She was survived by all her children, except her eldest son Joseph, who died as an infant in 1875, and by her stepdaughter Adeline, who died in 1894.

Sources:

Photo supplied by Paul Lavoie.

1. St-Pierre-du-Portage (L’Assomption, Quebec), parish register, 1849, p. 38 verso, entry no. B.168, Marie Delphine Cordelie Racette (written as Marie Delphine Cordelie Racette, indexed as Marie Delphine Cordelie Routh) baptism, 12 November 1849; St-Pierre-du-Portage parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 20 August 2014).

2. 1921 census of Canada, Cambridge (Township), Russell, Ontario, population schedule, enumeration district 125, subdistrict 3, p. 9, dwelling 70, family 70, Joseph Leveille [sic] household; digital image, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 11 September 2013); citing Library and Archives Canada, Sixth Census of Canada, 1921, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: Library and Archives Canada, 2013; Series RG31, Statistics Canada Fonds.

3. “Ontario, Canada, Deaths, 1869-1938 and Deaths Overseas, 1939-1947”, digital image, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 20 August 2014), entry for Cordelia Leveillée [sic], 17 December 1928; citing Archives of Ontario, Registrations of Deaths, 1869-1938, MS 935, reel 358; Archives of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

4. “Ontario, Canada, Deaths, 1869-1938 and Deaths Overseas, 1939-1947”, digital image, Ancestry.ca, entry for Cordelia Leveillée, 17 December 1928. Endocarditis is “inflammation of the inside lining of the heart chambers and heart valves (endocardium)”. MedlinePlus, database, National Institutes of Health (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001098.htm : accessed 20 August 2014), “Endocarditis”.

5. St-Viateur (Limoges, Ontario), parish register, 1928-1939, p. 8, entry no. S.20 (1928), Cordelia Racette burial, 19 December 1928; St-Viateur parish; digital image, “Ontario, Canada, Catholic Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1747-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 20 August 2014).

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.

52 Ancestors: #10 Albert Desgroseilliers – A tall and bespectacled man

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 10th week of this challenge, I chose my maternal great-grandfather Albert Desgroseilliers (1879-1957).

During the first week of this challenge, I wrote about Albert’s wife Clémentine Léveillé; you can read about her here.

My great-grandfather Albert was born on 12 February 1879 in Embrun, Russell County, Ontario. He was the eighth child and fifth son of Pierre Desgroseilliers and his wife Flavie Lepage. (Five other children were born after Albert.) He received the name Norbert at his baptism the day after he was born, but was known as Albert. He was not the first son named Albert in his family, though. An earlier Albert was born in July 1873, but lived only 12 days.

Albert grew to be a tall man, about 6’5”. I don’t know when he started needing eyeglasses, but he appears to be wearing a pair in the earliest photo I have of him taken at his son Eugène’s wedding in August 1925.

In the spring of 1899, Albert married Embrun-born Clémentine Léveillé in St-Viateur church of Limoges, near Embrun, on April 24. Clémentine was a few months older than her husband, as she was born on 12 November 1878. Within a few months, the couple moved north to Nipissing (now Sudbury) District and made their home in the village of St. Charles, where Albert’s parents and other paternal relatives were now living.

Albert and Clémentine’s first child, Eugène, was born in August 1900. Thirteen more children followed between 1901 and 1923: Arthur, Alma, Ovila, Hormidas, Roméo, Anna, Léonidas, Flavie, Léandre, Donat, Ovide, Ovila, and Joseph. Two daughters and a son (Alma, Ovila and Anna) died when very young, between 1905 and 1910.

Albert (sitting, left) with his wife and six of their children, 1950s

After living in St-Charles for about 17 years, Albert moved his family further north to the quaintly named village of Moonbeam, in Cochrane District. There, his three youngest children were born. The family sustained two loses when sons Arthur (21) and Hormidas (27) died in 1923 and 1934, respectively.

The first child to marry was my grandfather Eugène, when he wed Juliette Beauvais in the summer of 1925 in Moonbeam. Albert and Clémentine became grandparents the next year when Juliette gave birth to a son in December 1926, but sadly, the child did not survive. More grandchildren, though, came at a regular pace over the years, with the last one born five years after Albert's death.

In the mid-1940s, Albert gave up farming, and moved to Sturgeon Falls, not far from St. Charles. Here, he and Clémentine lived out their remaining years.

In the fall of 1957, Albert travelled to Ottawa, presumably to visit his younger brother Célestin, who was ill. Célestin died that November in hospital. Albert must have been taken ill, as well, because he died while still in Ottawa less than a month after his brother, on 16 December 1957. His nephew Laurent (Célestin’s son) registered Albert’s death. (I’ve written here about how I learned that Albert died in Ottawa, instead of Sturgeon Falls where I had always been told he died.)

Albert’s funeral was held in Sturgeon Falls on 19 December 1957. He is buried there in St. Mary’s (Old) Cemetery.

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Wedding Wednesday: Desgroseilliers – Léveillé

One hundred and fourteen years ago today, my maternal great-grandparents Albert Desgroseilliers and Clémentine Léveillé married on 24 April 1899 in St-Viateur Roman Catholic church in Limoges, Russell County, Ontario.



Albert and Clémentine Desgroseilliers, mid-1950s

The above photograph shows them at home at 286 Nipissing Street in Sturgeon Falls in the 1950s.

Albert and Clémentine had fourteen children, 11 sons and three daughters. Their youngest child, Joseph, was only two years old when their eldest child Eugène (my grandfather) married in August 1925.

My great-grandparents were married for 58 years. Their union is the third longest marriage in the first seven generations of my maternal and paternal ancestry.

Albert died aged 78 on 16 December 1957 in Ottawa. (I’ve written here about my theory as to why he died in Ottawa instead of in Sturgeon Falls, his usual place of residence.) Clémentine survived him nearly 12 years; she died on 18 October 1969, one month short of her 91st birthday.

Copyright © 2013, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Funeral Card Friday: Albert Desgroseilliers

This funeral card is dedicated to the “douce mémoire” (dear memory) of Albert Desgroseilliers, my maternal great-grandfather. The card measures 10 cm long by 5.5 cm wide (approximately 4” x 2”). I don’t remember how I came to own it, but my mother had it for many years before she gave it to me.

I never met Albert, because he died a few months before I was born. He was a tall man, about 6’5” (his eldest son Eugène was even taller – 6’7”), and was a farmer most of his life. Albert was born in February 1879 in Embrun in Russell County, Ontario, and married Clémentine Léveillé in April 1899 in nearby Limoges. Soon after their wedding, they relocated north to St-Charles in Nipissing District, where their son Eugène was born in the summer of 1900.

When I first started researching my mother’s side of the family many years ago, I was told that Albert died in Sturgeon Falls, close to St-Charles, where he and Clémentine settled on a small property. Years later, when I found his burial record in the “Drouin Collection” at Ancestry.ca, I read that he died on December 16, 1957 and that his funeral took place three days later on December 19 in La Résurrection parish in Sturgeon Falls. I was told he died in Sturgeon Falls by my mother and her sister Madeleine, I knew he was buried in that town, and I was satisfied with this information. About three years ago, I ordered a certified copy of Albert’s “Statement of Death” (death registration) from the Office of the Registrar General in Ontario. Was I ever surprised and confused to read that my great-grandfather died not in Sturgeon Falls as I had always believed, but miles away in Ottawa General Hospital in our country’s capital city! (I knew I had the correct Albert Desgroseilliers, because all the other bits of info on the form matched what was verified about him, like his date and place of birth, the names of his parents, and the name of his wife.) I asked Mom if she could clear up this mystery, but she assured me that Sturgeon Falls was where her grandfather died. She suggested I call her elder sister, Madeleine, who would surely confirm that “fact”. So, I call my Aunt Madeleine, and she was just as sure as Mom was about where Albert died. She couldn’t explain why his death registration gave a different, and until now, unheard of place of death. At this point in time (2009), all of Albert’s 14 children were deceased, so I couldn’t ask any of them for their help. I looked at the document one more time hoping to see if I had missed important clues. I believe I found two. First, according to “Length Deceased Resided” were the death occurred, it says that Albert lived in Ottawa for “2 mois” (2 months), indicating that he was there since October. I wondered what would have brought him to Ottawa? I checked my files on his family, and saw that his younger brother Célestin had recently died on November 22 in Vanier. (Vanier used to be a municipality next door to Ottawa, but is now part of that city.) Second, the name of the informant was Laurent DesGroseilliers, Albert’s nephew, and Célestin’s son. It now seemed reasonable to think that Albert travelled from his home in Sturgeon Falls to visit his ailing brother in Vanier. While there, he became ill, was taken to the hospital where he subsequently died. (The death registration does not have a section for cause of death.)

Copyright © 2012, Yvonne Demoskoff