Sibling Saturday: The Children of Joseph and Olivine (Hotte) Beauvais

Today’s Sibling Saturday is the fifth part in an ongoing series about my ancestors’ families. Here are the previous articles in this series:

• 21 May 2016: Sibling Saturday: The Children of Jean-Baptiste Bouchard (1698-1755)

• 21 April 2018: Sibling Saturday: The Children of Pierre Janvry dit Belair (1851-1941)

• 21 July 2018: Sibling Saturday: The Children of Olivier and Elizabeth (Vanasse) Vanasse

• 15 September 2018: Sibling Saturday: The Children of Albert and Clémentine (Léveillé) Desgroseilliers

Joseph and Olivine (possibly their wedding photo)

My maternal great-grandparents Joseph Beauvais and Olivine Hotte were born in Papineau County, Quebec – he in Ripon and she in nearby Hartwell (now Chénéville). They married on 16 August 1897 in Chénéville. Joseph and Olivine were the parents of 16 children: 12 sons and 4 daughters. Joseph was a bûcheron (a woodcutter, timberman or a faller) and that’s probably what led him to move his young family to Tupper Lake in New York State, an area known for its lumber production. His second son Oscar was born there in 1899. The Beauvais family lived in New York for one or two years, before they returned to live in the province of Quebec. About 1923, Joseph and his family moved to Moonbeam, a village in northern Ontario. Olivine died there soon after on 4 June 1926. Joseph died on 17 September 1937, also in Moonbeam.

I knew some of my mother’s aunts and uncles, like Réal and the three youngest ones. When my family was on holiday in Ontario and Quebec in 1986, we visited Gatineau (across from Ottawa in the province of Quebec) and met Réal (Mom’s godfather) and his wife Stella. While there, we visited Jean-Marie and spent a lovely afternoon at his home. His twin brother Jean-Paul was there, so I met him, too. As for Laurette, I knew her from our occasional visits to Moonbeam where she lived. (Moonbeam is about 1½ hours north of Timmins where my family lived.) After we moved to British Columbia in 1979, we rarely saw Mom’s Beauvais relatives. We really appreciated that Aunt Madeleine, Mom’s sister, who lived in eastern Canada, kept us up-to-date with news about their relatives.

Children of Joseph and Olivine (Hotte) Beauvais

1. Ovide Beauvais
Ovide was born on 8 June 1898 in Chénéville. On 7 June 1920, he married Lucienne Duchesne in Sturgeon Falls, Ontario. They had 16 children. In 1941, Ovide and his family moved from Sudbury and settled in Blue Water, a village that no longer exists near Sarnia, Ontario. He died on 12 July 1981 in Sarnia.

2. Oscar Beauvais
Oscar was born on 25 November 1899 in Tupper Lake, Franklin County, New York, USA. He married on 5 October 1922 in Montpellier, near Chénéville, Rosa Robillard. They were the parents of 14 children. Oscar and his family later settled in Blue Water like Ovide and Juliette. Oscar died on 4 July 1979 in Sarnia.

3. Juliette Beauvais
My grandmother Juliette was born on 30 June 1901 in Chénéville. On 18 August 1925, she married Eugène Desgroseilliers in Moonbeam. Juliette and Eugène, who had nine children, lived in northern Ontario and northern Quebec, where he was a chief of police. In 1942, they settled in Blue Water like her brothers Ovide and Oscar. Juliette died of pancreatic cancer on 14 August 1948 in Sarnia, Ontario. Eugène’s brother Ovide Desgroseilliers married Juliette’s sister Laurette (Lorette) Beauvais. I wrote about Juliette and her sister Agathe at Sibling Saturday: Juliette and Agathe Beauvais.

Juliette and Agathe (about 1935)

4. Marie-Louise Beauvais
Marie-Louise was born on 30 January 1903 in Montpellier. She died on 26 May 1947 in hospital, possibly in Kapuskasing, Ontario. Marie-Louise was unmarried. About 10 years ago, her niece, my Aunt Madeleine, told me that Marie-Louise had been in love with one of her sister Juliette’s brothers-in-law, either Arthur Desgroseilliers (1901-1923) or Hormidas Desgroseilliers (1906-1934). Unfortunately, both brothers died young and unmarried.

Marie-Louise (left) holding her niece Mariette, daughter of Juliette (centre) and Eugène (right) (1928)

5. Aldège Beauvais
Aldège was born on 16 August 1905 in Montpellier. In January 1940, one of Aldège’s horses kicked him in the face. He died from complications from his injuries on 2 February 1940 in Montreal, Quebec. Aldège was unmarried.

6. Léger Beauvais
Léger was born on 4 January 1907 in Montpellier. On 26 February 1935, he married Rollande Filion in Cochrane, Ontario. They lived in Moonbeam and were the parents of 14 children. Léger died on 6 September 1992 in Moonbeam.

7. Romuald Beauvais
Romuald was born on 16 March 1908 in Montpellier. He married Bernadette Dubosse (Dubosq) on 22 November 1944 in Moonbeam. They had four children. Romuald died on 5 November 1991 in Kapuskasing.

8. Emile Beauvais
Emile was born on 7 April 1910 in Montpellier. On 15 July 1947, he married Claire Bourgeois, a schoolteacher, in Val-Rita, Ontario. The couple had four children. Emile died on 28 July 1990 in Hearst, Ontario.

9. Martial Beauvais
Martial was born on 17 September 1911 in Montpellier. He married Marie-Paule Marin on 3 July 1948 in Moonbeam. They had seven children. Martial died 18 August 1982. The cause of death was a vehicle accident, according to the coroner’s report.

10. Réal Beauvais
Réal was born on 26 January 1913 in Montpellier. On 15 August 1936, he married Stella Moisan in Val d’Or, Quebec. The couple had 16 children. Réal died on 29 September 1997 in Gatineau. Réal and his younger sister Agathe were godparents to their niece, Jacqueline Desgroseilliers (my mother), at her baptism in 1933.

Réal (1986)

11. Aurèle Beauvais
Aurèle was born on 6 June 1914 in Montpellier. He married Florence Carrière on 12 May 1942 in Moonbeam. They had four children. Aurèle died in 1996 in Hearst.

12. Joseph Beauvais
Joseph was born on 22 August 1916 in Montpellier. On 22 November 1939, he married Germaine Girard in Moonbeam. The couple, who had six children, lived in Val d’Or. Joseph died there on 6 March 2003.

Joseph (about 1936)

13. Agathe Beauvais
Agathe was born on 3 March 1918 in Montpellier. She and her elder brother Réal were godparents to their niece, Jacqueline (my mother), at her baptism in 1933. Agathe married Lucien Larouche on 25 March 1940 in Val d’Or. They had eight children. Agathe died on 30 December 1956 in Val d’Or after giving birth to a son earlier that day. Her niece, my Aunt Madeleine, said her death was due to a blood clot. My Mom Jacqueline was visiting her when they got the news of their Aunt’s death. I wrote about Agathe and her sister Juliette at Sibling Saturday: Juliette and Agathe Beauvais.

14. Laurette (Lorette) Beauvais
Laurette (Lorette) was born on 9 August 1919 in Montpellier. She married Ovide Desgroseilliers on 9 September 1936 in Moonbeam. They had seven children, all boys, and lived in Moonbeam. Laurette died on 24 April 1995. Ovide’s brother Eugène Desgroseilliers married Laurette’s sister Juliette Beauvais.

Ovide and Laurette with their niece Jacqueline (1974)

15. Jean-Marie Beauvais
Jean-Marie and Jean-Paul were fraternal twins. They were born on 1 May 1921 in Montpellier. Jean-Marie married Huguette Larouche on 5 July 1948 in Val Senneville, Quebec. They lived in Gatineau, Quebec and were the parents of four children. Jean-Marie died there on 20 December 2010. Jean-Marie and Jean-Paul served in World War II. Jean-Marie was posted at CFB Chilliwack, British Columbia for a time. On their leave, the twins visited their eldest sister, my grandmother Juliette, at home in Blue Water. Mom said Juliette loved her brothers and was close to them even though there was a 20-year gap between them. Uncle Jean-Marie lived for a brief time with my parents and our family in the early 1970s. He was a sales rep for Filter Queen vacuum cleaners and came to Timmins to recruit my father as a salesman. I can still see Uncle Jean-Marie sitting in our living room on Main (now Bélanger) Avenue talking to someone on the telephone and asking for a French operator. He believed that since Canada was a bilingual country, the phone company ought to find him someone who spoke French. I'm pretty sure he succeeded, too.

16. Jean-Paul Beauvais
Jean-Paul and Jean-Marie were fraternal twins. They were born on 1 May 1921 in Montpellier. On 12 September 1959, Jean-Paul married Pauline Ennis, a widow, in Montreal. He died in 2002.

Back, left to right: Jean-Marie, Joseph, and Jean-Paul
Front, left to right: Laurette, Réal and his wife Stella (1987)

Copyright © 2018, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Friday’s Faces from the Past: Juliette Desgroseilliers and Baby Daughter Mariette

I love this black and white photograph.

It came to me from Aunt Madeleine, my Mom’s elder sister. I don’t know how she acquired it, but it must have been in her family (or that of a maternal aunt) before she became its owner.

On the back of the photo, in a handwriting that I don’t recognize, someone wrote:

Juliette Beauvais

followed by three lines in another unknown handwriting:

Mariette [bébé]

A Hearst

1930

The “1930” date isn’t correct. Mariette, born in December 1927, looks to be about 6 months old, so the year should be 1928. Also, it was probably July or August, based on the light clothing mother and baby are in.

Juliette wears a short-sleeved, checkered-patterned cotton dress, over which she donned a generous apron. She has a fine head of bobbed hair. When I enlarged the photo, I noticed that she’s wearing a plain band ring on each hand. Baby Mariette, in a cloth diaper, wears a dress and little socks.

I don’t know the photographer's identity. Was it Juliette’s husband Eugène, or perhaps her sister Marie Louise, who visited the young family that year? Or was it maybe a travelling photographer? Whoever took the photo, it was probably a spur-of-the-moment thing, because Juliette is dressed casually and wears an apron.

The picture was likely taken in Hearst, where Mariette was born and where her father worked as chief of police. The small mat by the door of the house on the right suggests it’s someone’s home – Juliette and Eugène’s?

I checked online images of baby carriages and found similar ones in the Eaton's Spring and Summer 1926 catalogue.* The 1926 models are described as Pullman Carriages and cost between $19.85 and $39.50. The body of Juliette’s baby carriage looks like wicker, but the Eaton’s ones are made of “fibre reed”.

A wonderful and precious photo of my grandmother and aunt taken 90 years ago.

* “Canadian Mail Order Catalogues”, database, Library and Archives Canada (http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/postal-heritage-philately/canadian-mail-order-catalogues/Pages/canadian-mail-order-catalogues.aspx : accessed 1 July 2018), Postal Heritage and Philately, Eaton's Spring and Summer 1926, p. 388 (image 400).

Copyright © 2018, Yvonne Demoskoff.

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 – Drive Down Memory Lane: Family Cars

Randy at Genea-Musings issued his weekly Saturday challenge to his readers two days ago. I’m late with my response, but I still want to participate, so here I am.

The challenge was to answer the following question: "Drive down Memory Lane - what were your family cars - from childhood to now, year, model, color, features. Can you remember?”

At first, I didn’t think I’d remember much about our family cars, but after looking at family photos and talking with Mom, my brother, and my husband, I decided to “drive down Memory Lane”.

The earliest memory I have of a family vehicle is of my Dad’s pickup truck. I was young, maybe 7 years old, so it must have been about 1966. I don’t remember any details about it, like the make and model. My only memory is of us four (my parents, my younger sister and I) trying to fit comfortably on the bench seat. I think it was Mom who complained that a truck wasn’t suited to a family.

Summer, ca 1967

The above photo shows my Mom, my grandfather Fred, and my sister and I. Our cousin Pauline is also with us; she’s scrunched in between Marianne and our Pépère. Marianne and I are in dresses and wear light coloured socks and shoes, while Pauline is in a sleeveless dress. The day we took this picture was probably a Sunday, summer of 1966 or 1967. I don’t have a clue where we are, though, or why we stopped to take pictures, but I doubt it was very far from home. (Dad loved home best and didn’t like travelling too far, if he didn’t have to.) We see just a bit of the front of our car in the lower right of the picture, but it appears to be a Ford – maybe a 1965 Ford Galaxie. I don’t remember this car, but Dad liked to change cars every few years, usually getting a lightly used one, so we likely didn’t have this Ford for too long.

Dad and Pépère (1969)

The next car I remember was the one in this photo, taken in the summer of 1969. We had recently moved to Main (now Belanger) Street. I compared our car with ads for the 1970 Ford Maverick released in the spring of 1969 and I think it’s the same vehicle. It was one of the few occasions Dad bought a new car. We still had the Maverick two years later, because Dad and my brother Raymond posed with the car in the summer of 1971.

Dad and Raymond (1971)

Dad soon changed cars and this time it was a Volkswagen Beetle. (Why get an even smaller vehicle when you have three children, I don’t know.) That car was the first of only two foreign vehicles Dad owned. I can still hear the distinctive sound of that VW when Dad pulled into the driveway all those years ago.

In the winter of 1972, we moved to another part of town, to Maple Street North. I don’t think the Beetle came with us, but I know Dad acquired a Dodge pickup in 1973 or 1974. That’s me holding my little brother on the hood of that truck.

Yvonne and Raymond (1974)

In August 1975, we went to Sturgeon Falls, near North Bay, for the wedding of one of Mom’s Desgroseilliers cousins. We travelled in a roomy car, possibly a 1973 Chrysler Newport. We took photos of ourselves just before leaving for church. Mom told me that she remembers that spacious car, saying how much she thought it was nice.

Jacqueline (1975)

The last two vehicles we owned before we moved to British Columbia were Mom’s Duster and Dad’s Sierra. Mom learned to drive when she was a young adult, but didn’t have a licence by the time she was in her 40s. After she got her driver’s licence, Dad bought Mom a Plymouth Duster, 1974-1976 vintage. He was often out of town for work, so that car came in handy. Soon after, Marianne also got her licence and began to drive the car, usually to school.

Mom's Plymouth Duster (1978)

In the winter of 1977, Marianne drove us to our high school for band practice one evening. Our little brother Raymond sat between us. We entered the school grounds and as we approached a parking space, the car suddenly hit a patch of ice. Marianne stepped on the brakes and I quickly put my arms against Raymond to hold him back. I’m not sure how well I could have held on to my brother (the car didn’t have seatbelts), but the car stopped safely and no one was hurt. That’s the Duster sitting in our driveway in 1978; lots of snow, eh?

While Mom (and Marianne) had a car, Dad had his truck – a GMC Sierra, a 1977 or 1978 model. That pickup was a darn efficient vehicle, because it ran on diesel and had dual fuel tanks. Dad had that truck in late 1978 when he worked in Bracebridge, Ontario. Dad had a serious accident on the job site and was hospitalized for a few weeks. When it was time to come home, he wasn’t strong enough to drive, so Mom drove them back to Timmins in the GMC. She found the eight-hour drive on winter roads nerve-wracking, since she was used to her small car. They stopped overnight in Kirkland Lake at Aunt Madeleine’s house, so that helped her to regain her confidence for the remainder of the drive home. Here’s a photo of Dad with that pickup in Hope, British Columbia.

Dad tinkering with his GMC (1980)

After we moved to BC, Dad continued his pattern of getting a used (or occasionally new) car every two or three years. He would drop in at the local dealership, look around, pick a vehicle, arrange the financing, and then come home. It was usually a spur of the moment decision and Mom often didn’t know that he had traded their car. Once home, he’d either walk in the house or call to Mom from the front door, saying something along the lines of “Jackie – come see the nice new car I bought you”. One day I was in the kitchen with Mom when Dad came home with another car. I still remember the eye roll she did and that “he did it again” look on her face. One time Dad brought home a blue-coloured car, because he knew she liked that colour. Mom liked blue for clothes, but not necessarily for cars. I don’t think she ever put Dad in the picture, though.

In the last two decades of his life, Dad bought more vehicles. I remember the 1977 Ford Thunderbird, another Chrysler Newport (1979 model), and a white station wagon (maybe a Plymouth Aries) that didn’t last long, because we couldn’t get used to the red interior. Trucks included a 1981 Dodge Ram Power Wagon (it caught fire and burned about five years later at work up in the bush near Boston Bar) and a Ford XLT (it replaced the Ram). The second and last time Dad bought a foreign vehicle was the silver Hyundai Sonata he got in the mid-1980s. They were very popular at the time and Dad didn’t want to be left behind.

The last car Dad owned was a ’92 Buick Regal in a deep blue colour. Mom and Dad loved that 4-door sedan. They often drove it to Bellingham, Washington (about two hours from Hope) where they liked to play bingo. They usually came back from there with a new batch of stuffed toys they won in those claw grabber machines. Our son Nicholas ended up with quite a collection when he was a toddler.

I’m really glad I decided to go on this memory lane trip. It brought back such wonderful memories of my family, particularly of my late father Maurice, which I’ll always cherish. Thanks for the challenge, Randy!

Copyright © 2017, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Clémentine Desgroseilliers’ Death Registration (1969)

Today – 18 October 2017 – is the 48th anniversary of the death of my maternal great-grandmother, Clémentine (Léveillé) Desgroseilliers.

Clémentine Desgroseilliers (ca 1948)

Clémentine was almost 91 years old when she passed away on 18 October 1969. [1] Although she lived about 4 hours south of Timmins where my family lived, I never met her. My Mom knew her, though, and visited her small farm in Sturgeon Falls, Ontario, when she was a child.

I have vague memories of that October. Mom had just found out she was expecting my brother Raymond. A few days later, my cousin Richard died in a car accident and Mom rushed to Kirkland Lake to be with her older sister Madeleine. Two weeks later, Mom got the news that their grandmother Clémentine died. Mom didn’t go to Sturgeon Falls for the funeral. The last memory I have is of me telling my friends at school (I was in Grade 6) that my great-grandmother had passed away.

Clémentine Desgroseilliers’ death registration, 1969 (cropped)

Source:

1. Province of Ontario, Statement of Death, no. 1969-045667, Clementine Desgroseilliers (1969); Office of the Registrar General, Thunder Bay.

Copyright © 2017, 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.

Sibling Saturday: Juliette and Agathe Beauvais

Juliette and Agathe were my maternal grandmother and great-aunt, respectively. Their parents Joseph and Olivine (Hotte) Beauvais married in August 1897 in Hartwell (now Chénéville), Papineau County, Quebec.

Juliette, born on 30 June 1901 in Chénéville, was the third child and eldest daughter. Agathe, who was born on 3 March 1918 in nearby Montpellier, was the thirteenth child and second youngest daughter. They had twelve brothers and two sisters. Twenty-three years separated the oldest child Ovide from the youngest, fraternal twins Jean-Marie and Jean-Paul.

The Beauvais children were raised mostly in Montpellier, a village in the Laurentian Hills in Papineau County, in southwestern Quebec. Their father Joseph was a farmer and woodcutter. About 1922, the family moved to the quaintly named village of Moonbeam, in northern Ontario. Four years later, mother Olivine died in June 1926 of ‘cardiac asthenia’ (Da Costa’s syndrome).

A few months before her mother’s death, Juliette married Eugène Desgroseilliers on 18 August 1925 in Moonbeam. They were blessed with nine children: Noël (who died at birth), Mariette, Madeleine, Simone, Marianne (who died young), Jacqueline (my Mom), Gaston (he died when he was six years old), Normande, and Jeanne d’arc. After living in northern Ontario and northwestern Quebec for a few years, Eugène and Juliette settled in Blue Water, near Sarnia, Ontario in 1942.

Juliette (left) and Agathe (right) pose on a staircase in the above photo. The handwriting on the back of the picture says “à Hearst vers 1930” [in Hearst about 1930]. I doubt that the year is correct, because Agathe would have been only 12 years old. If the location is correct, though, the photo dates more likely to the mid-1930s, because Juliette, her husband and their children lived in Hearst, west of Moonbeam, until about 1936, when they moved to Rouyn, Quebec.

On 25 March 1940, Agathe married Lucien Larouche in Val d’Or, Abitibi District, Quebec. Their marriage registration gives their occupation as bonne (maid) for Agathe and mineur (miner) for Lucien. The couple had eight children: Renée, Gaston, Blandine, Gérard, Laurier, a son (who died soon after birth), Elisabeth, and Christian.

In 1948, Juliette became ill. She had advanced cancer of the pancreas. Within a few months of the diagnosis, she died in hospital in Sarnia on 14 August 1948, four days before her 23rd wedding anniversary.

Agathe survived her sister by eight years. She died suddenly from a blood clot after giving birth to a son on 30 December 1956. My Mom and Dad were visiting her sister Madeleine in Kirkland Lake at the time. Mom recalls that she was sleeping in an upstairs bedroom at Aunt Madeleine’s house when Dad woke her to break the news. Mom cried because Agathe, her godmother, was her favorite aunt.

Copyright © 2016, 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.

52 Ancestors 2015: #28 – From Rouyn, Quebec to Nobel, Ontario

I’m participating in “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2015 Edition” by Amy Johnson Crow of No Story Too Small.

For the 28th week of this challenge, I used the optional weekly theme (Road Trip) to describe the journey my mother and her family made when they moved from Quebec to Ontario when she was a young child. Mom doesn’t have any memories of this trip, but her sister Madeleine does. A few years ago, Aunt Madeleine wrote her recollections for me and I quote from them in this article.

In the spring of 1940, my Desgroseilliers grandparents, Eugène and Juliette, lived in Rouyn, a mining community in the boreal forest of northwestern Quebec. Eugène, who was 39 years old, was unemployed after working as a chief of police for a number of years.

Rouyn-Noranda, 1937 (fr.wikipedia.org)

Canadian Industries Ltd. (CIL) had recently opened a new plant on the site of a former WWI explosives factory in Nobel, a village located just north of Parry Sound, Ontario. Eugène decided to try his luck with CIL, which manufactured explosives and munitions. He was soon hired as a guard with the company. Before returning to Rouyn, Eugène bought some property outside of Parry Sound. With the help of friends, he built a two-story home for his family. His elder daughter Madeleine described it as a “shell of a house”.

After borrowing a car, Eugène returned home. His elder daughters had just finished school in June. Madeleine remembered how her father “loaded us all with only our personal belongings for the long drive back to Parry Sound”. Eugène, wife Juliette (39), and children Mariette (12½), Madeleine (11), Simone (9½), Jacqueline (6½), Gaston (5), Normande (3), and Jeanne d’arc (2) were “jammed in a car plus boxes”.

Route from Rouyn, Quebec to Nobel, Ontario 

The journey of about 426 kilometres (about 265 miles) took a few days. Madeleine recalls that the car had “a couple of flat tires on the [way]”. One of them happened “just on the outskirts of North Bay” in Ontario. She and her sister Mariette “walked to [the] nearest garage” to fetch an attendant to repair the tire. The family finally arrived at their new home late in the evening of “a real hot day in July”.

It must have been a great relief for my grandfather Eugène to find a job after being out of work. A regular paycheck was a blessing, but the change in environment was a culture shock. The family exchanged Rouyn, a largely Roman Catholic Francophone community, for Nobel, a mainly Protestant English-speaking village. My aunts and uncle had known only parochial schools, Juliette spoke no English, and she and Eugène were separated from family (they both had brothers who lived near them).

Nobel turned out to be an unhappy place of residence. Less than a year later, six year old Gaston died following a car accident after a day of fishing with his father.* I’ve always wondered if the tragic loss of his only surviving son had something to do with my grandfather moving away from Nobel and relocating his family to another town within a few weeks of Gaston’s death.

* I’ve written twice about Gaston on my blog: Wednesday’s Child: Gaston Desgroseilliers, A Brief Life and Mystery Monday: Gaston Desgroseilliers’ Cause of Death.

Copyright © 2015, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Friday’s Faces from the Past: Eugene Desgroseilliers with his brother and niece

Eugène Desgroseilliers (centre) with his brother Donat and their niece Lina, 

about 1955-1957

I love finding photographs that shows my maternal grandfather Eugène Desgroseilliers. I first saw this picture when my Mom’s older sister Madeleine gave it to me in October 2011. Aunt Madeleine was on vacation in British Columbia that year and brought with her an envelope filled with pictures and other memorabilia that she gathered for me.

Two people are identified in the photo, because someone (it’s not Aunt Madeleine’s handwriting, which I recognize) wrote on the back of it:

Oncle Donat & Oncle Ovila’s daughter “Lina”

Whoever wrote these names forgot to add Eugène’s. There are no other details on the back or front of the picture like when and where it was taken. I think it dates to 1955 or 1956, since Lina looks about 3 or 4 years old. Donat and Ovila (not shown in the picture) are Eugène’s younger brothers, while Lina is his niece. The trio presumably posed at a relative’s home in Sturgeon Falls or Bonfield, near North Bay, Ontario. Alternatively, the picture was taken in August 1957, when Eugène travelled from Sarnia to Sturgeon Falls for his brother Joseph’s funeral.

Can any of my Desgroseilliers cousins fill in the blanks for this photo?

Copyright © 2015, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Sympathy Saturday: René Legault

Four years ago today, on 11 October 2010, my Aunt Madeleine and my cousins lost their beloved husband and father, René. He was 86 years old.

Uncle René was a tall, good looking man, with wavy hair. He was always happy and smiled a lot. Mom loved dancing with him at family events like weddings, and he and Dad shared a similar sense of humor and got along well.

These are two of my favorite photos of Uncle René. They are wonderful reminders of how I most remember him: the working man (a police officer in a small northeastern Ontario town) and the family man with lots of humor.

When uncle René was dressed in his uniform, he seemed serious, but still approachable. When he was home, off work, he was lots of fun and loved teasing his children and us, his nieces (my younger sister Marianne and I), when we visited him and Aunt Madeleine and their eight children – my cousins Richard, Michel, Raymond, Robert, Jean-Paul, Lise, Patrick and Gérard – at their home with the big yard.

In the above photo, there’s my cousin Robert (far left), my Mom holding me, Aunt Madeleine holding her son Patrick, and Uncle René hanging on to daughter Lise’s pigtail. He wasn’t being mean (Uncle René was the most fair and upright man I ever knew), but just being playful with his only daughter.

Still missing you, mon oncle René.

Copyright © 2104, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Wordless Wednesday: By the lake

My Mom Jacqueline (in the brown sweater) poses with her sisters and brother-in-law (Jeanne d’arc, Normande, Howard, Madeleine and (in front) Simone) near Moonbeam, Ontario, in the summer of 1974.

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.