Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Photographs Through the Generations

It’s Saturday night and Randy at Genea-Musings has issued his weekly challenge to his readers.

Tonight’s mission is to determine:

1) How many generations do you have photographs or portraits of your ancestors and descendants? It can be any line...it just can't be broken!
2) Tell us the line, or better yet, show us the unbroken line. Provide birth-death years, and the approximate date that the photograph or portrait was made.
3) Share your generation picture line in a blog post of your own, or in a Facebook post, or in a comment to this post.

Here is my 6-generation picture line:

1. My great-great-grandfather Pierre Desgroseilliers (1841-1904), born in Ste-Martine, Quebec and died in St. Charles, Ontario. Pierre looks rather young, so the photo might date to the time he married in 1865.

2. My great-grandfather Albert Desgroseilliers (1879-1957) in the mid-1950s.

3. My grandfather Eugène Desgroseilliers (1900-1960) in 1959.

4. My mother Jacqueline (Desgroseilliers) Belair in 2010.

5. Myself, Yvonne (Belair) Demoskoff in 2017.

6. My descendant – my son Nicholas Demoskoff, in 2014.

Thanks for another great challenge, Randy!

Copyright © 2019, Yvonne Demoskoff.

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

It’s Saturday and Randy at Genea-Musings has issued his weekly challenge to his readers. With Father’s Day tomorrow, Randy asks, “What did your father really like to do in his work or spare time? Did he have hobbies, or a workshop, or did he like sports, or reading, or watching TV?”

Dad was a welder by trade and worked all over Ontario and Quebec, Canada, from the early 1950s until about 1979. He really liked this kind of work and he was very good at it, too. After we moved to British Columbia in 1979, Dad welded mostly for himself (like repairs on his MACK dump truck), but also for neighbors when they asked for his help with a project.

Trucking was Dad’s second favorite job, whether it was in partnership with his brother Ray building roads in the mountains between Hope and Boston Bar (here in B.C.) in the 1980s or when he drove snow plow trucks for the local highways department in the winter months to supplement his income.

Dad didn’t belong to service or sports clubs, not because he didn’t think they weren’t worthwhile, but because he liked the freedom to choose what he wanted to do and when he wanted to do it.

In the 1960s, Dad liked fishing, particularly for doré (I think it's walleye in English), abundant in Ontario where we lived. He had the usual gear, like fishing rods, reels, and tackle. What I liked best of all that stuff were the fly lures. At six or seven years old, I found their multi-coloured feathers pretty to look at, but nasty if I accidently pricked myself with a barbed hook.

Dad discovered the fun of CB radios in the 1970s. He was quite the enthusiast and bought himself a base station, desk mic, and an antenna tower.

When Dad more or less retired from trucking in the 1990s, he took up metal detecting. He treasure-hunted everywhere, from the field across the road by our house, to English Bay beach in Vancouver. When he and Mom travelled in the summer, Dad made sure his metal detector went with him.

Metal detecting at English Bay, Vancouver (1996)

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.

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.