Wednesday’s Child: Marianne Desgroseilliers

In the village of Hearst in northern Ontario, Canada, a baby girl was born on 23 January 1932. She was baptised “Hélène Marie Anne” on the following day, but was known as Marianne to her family. Her parents Eugène and Juliette (Beauvais) Desgroseilliers had three other children: Mariette (4), Madeleine (2½) and Simone (1½). Four more children would come after Marianne, three sisters and a brother.

During the 1930s, the Depression caused great hardship throughout the country, but the Desgroseilliers family managed to weather the storm. Eugène was the chief of police in Hearst and was able to provide for his family. He was also a charitable man, who gave food and money to the poor and needy of the village.

Marianne (right) with her sister Madeleine, about 1936.

When Marianne was about 4 years old, her family moved to Rouyn in northwestern Quebec, where Eugène served as chief of police. It was here that her sister Normande was born in early 1937. Within a few months, Eugène relocated to nearby Duparquet, where he continued to work as chief of police.

1938 began with such promise for the family. Marianne’s sixth birthday was coming up in three weeks’ time, and her mother Juliette was expecting her ninth child. However, Marianne became very ill. It was appendicitis. She died on 3 January 1938. Her sudden death plunged her family in mourning. Eugène was present at his little girl’s funeral, which took place two days later at St-Albert-le-Grand church in Duparquet. She was buried in the local cemetery.

Marianne was not forgotten. When my sister was born in 1960, Mom named her Marianne after her beloved sister.

Copyright © 2013, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Sunday’s Obituary: Fred Belair

Twenty-two years ago, on 20 January 1991, my grandfather Fred passed away at the venerable age of 101. When I learned this sad news, I knew that my relatives in Timmins would take care of placing an obituary in the local paper. (Although he died in Peterborough at his younger daughter's home, my grandfather had lived in Timmins since the 1950s.) I decided to compose an obituary for him in my local newspaper, since Fred had visited Hope on number of occasions after his younger son Ray moved here. My grandfather Fred was interred in the Timmins Memorial Cemetery with his beloved wife Julie, who predeceased him in 1967.

Fred's Ontario newspaper obituary [1]

  

Fred's British Columbia newspaper obituary [2]


Sources:

1. “Frederick Belair”, obituary, undated clipping, ca. January 1991, from unidentified newspaper; supplied by Joan Laneville, Timmins, Ontario, 2011. Joan’s daughter, Lise, scanned her grandfather’s obituary and sent a PDF copy by email to her cousin Yvonne Demoskoff in November 2011.

2. “Fred Belair”, obituary, The Hope Standard (Hope, British Columbia), Wednesday, January 23, 1991, p. 11.

Copyright © 2013, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Freddie Burchill, Home Child

Uncle Freddie Burchill, who married my Dad’s aunt Agnes Vanasse, was a British home child. A “home child” was often poor, perhaps an orphan, perhaps living in a slum or in some kind of institution (workhouse, orphanage, or in a children’s home).[1] A child in these circumstances was sent to Canada as a way of ‘saving’ him or her from a life of destitution.

Freddie came to Canada as a youngster in July 1916. (I believe that Freddie is the same person as “Fred Burchell”, 9 years old, who arrived on 22 July 1916 at the port of Quebec.)[2]

When I visited him and Aunt Aggie at their apartment in Ottawa in the late 1970s or early 1980s, he told me a little about himself and how he came to live in Canada. Unfortunately, I have forgotten the details. For example, I don’t know if he told me that he was an orphan (many home children were), where in England he was originally from, or how he was treated once he was placed with his adoptive family.

Freddie was one of 98,000 British children sent to Canada between 1870 and 1930.[3] In the summer of 1916, he and 67 other children came to Canada under the auspices of the Catholic Emigration Association. They left the port of Liverpool on July 14th on board the Scandinavian, and arrived in Quebec City on July 22nd.[4] These boys and girls were one of the last groups of children to immigrate to Canada during World War I because by 1917 “all child emigration was prohibited by the British government, because of the dangers of travel by sea”.[5]

S/S Scandinavian (2), Allan Line

(Photo credit: S/S Scandinavian (2), Allan Line; Norway - Heritage, http://www.norwayheritage.com/)[6]

The children’s destination was St. George’s Home in Hintonburg, near Ottawa, Ontario.[7] St. George’s Home, headquarters for the CES, was located in Hintonburg, which was on the western outskirts of Ottawa, but is now part of that city. The emigrant boys and girls stayed here until they were placed or adopted with suitable families. Boys were typically sent to farms as labourers, while girls were placed in domestic service.[8] In Uncle Freddie’s case, he told me that Thomas and Anna (Kennedy) Nephin, of Chichester, Pontiac County, Quebec, adopted him.

Freddie died at the age of 82 in November 1989 and Agnes died in June 2000.

Freddie and Aggie Burchill on their 50th wedding anniversary, 1985.

Sources:

1. “Home Children: Origins”, British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa (http://www.bifhsgo.ca/cpage.php?pt=10 : accessed 3 August 2010).

2. “Canadian Passenger Lists, 1865-1935”, digital images, Ancestry.ca (www.ancestry.ca : accessed 3 August 2010), entry for Fred Burchell, age 9, arrived Quebec 22 July 1916 on the Scandinavian.

3. Frederick J. McEvoy, “’These Treasures of the Church of God’: Catholic Child Immigration to Canada”, Historical Studies 65 (1999), online archives, Canadian Catholic Historical Association (http://www.umanitoba.ca/colleges/st_pauls/ccha/Back%20Issues/CCHA1999/McEvoy.pdf : accessed 6 August 2010), p. 50.

4. “Home Children (1869-1930)”, database, Library and Archives Canada (http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/homechildren : accessed 3 August 2010), entry for Fred Burchell.

5. McEvoy, “’These Treasures of the Church of God’: Catholic Child Immigration to Canada”, p. 61.

6. Photo of S/S Scandinavian (built 1898), digital image, Norway – Heritage (http://www.norwayheritage.com/ : accessed 12 January 2013), choose the search function of “Emigrant Ships”, search for “Scandinavian”, and retrieve the image by selecting “S/S Scandinavian (2), Allan Line”.

7. “Canadian Passenger Lists, 1865-1935”, digital images, Ancestry.ca, entry for Fred Burchell, 9, arrived Quebec 22 July 1916, Scandinavian.

8. McEvoy, “’These Treasures of the Church of God’: Catholic Child Immigration to Canada”, p. 50.

Copyright © 2012, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Elizabeth Price, Deerfield Captive

Elizabeth Price, a young widow, was one of over 100 prisoners taken to Canada after the French and Indian raid and massacre of her village of Deerfield in present-day Massachusetts on 29 February 1703 (Old Style)/11 March 1704 (New Style). She is one of three Colonial American ancestors of mine who were taken from their homes in similar circumstances in the early 1700s. The other two are Sarah Allen (1692-1764), another Deerfield captive, and Deborah Coal (Cole) (1698-1744), a 1703 Saco captive.

While going over my mother’s ancestry a few years ago, I found out that Elizabeth was my 8X great-grandmother. After some basic research, I knew she was born about 1683 in Massachusetts, was the daughter of Robert Price and Sarah Webb, and was married to a certain Andrew Stevens, who was killed in the raid on Deerfield. I also knew that within a couple of years of arriving in Canada, she married a French-born soldier, Jean Fourneau, on 3 February 1706 in Montreal. Elizabeth died there in November 1716, soon after giving birth to her seventh child, a daughter, who did not survive.

Wanting to know more about Elizabeth and Deerfield, I read what I could find, including books like Captors and Captives: The 1704 French and Indian Raid on Deerfield, by Evan Haefeli and Kevin Sweeney (Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003).

Later, I found more information about Elizabeth in the two-volume work New England Captives Carried to Canada Between 1677 and 1760 During the French and Indian Wars, by Emma Lewis Coleman (Portland Maine: Southworth Press, 1925). I got to see this book at the Seattle Public Library in the summer of 2010, when I was in Seattle for a few days with my husband who was there for work.

Page 114 in volume 2 of Coleman’s book had an English translation of the text of Elizabeth’s Roman Catholic baptism, which took place on 25 April 1705 in Montreal. It stated that she was “born at Northampton in New England the (13) 23d August 1683”. I knew it was important to get corroborating evidence for this date and place, but I put that task aside while I concentrated on other ancestors.

I still hadn’t checked for documents about Elizabeth’s birth when, last summer, I came across an article on Travis LeMaster’s blog TJL Genes: Preserving Our Family History titled On This Day : August 12. The very first entry in that list of events caught my attention:

“1683 - Elizabeth PRICE born. Elizabeth was the daughter of Robert PRICE and Sarah WEBB.”

I immediately thought, “Hey, that’s my ancestor!” My next thought was, “What are the chances that I would find a distant ancestor in someone else’s blog?” I posted a comment about the possibility that Travis and I were cousins, and soon afterwards, I sent him an email asking if he knew more about the exact date and place of Elizabeth’s birth.

Unfortunately, Travis couldn't remember which source gave him that information. That is, until this past Sunday. I got an email from him letting me know that he found Elizabeth’s date and place of birth in the “Massachusetts, Town Clerk, Vital and Towns Records, 1579-2001” database at FamilySearch.org. Hooray! You can read how Travis found this record at Birth of Elizabeth Price (1683-1716) Northampton, Massachusetts.

Thank you, Travis! I'm grateful that you kept my question in mind and got back to me!

Aren’t online cousins and their genealogy blogs terrific?

Copyright © 2013, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Amanuensis Monday: First Belair Marriage in Canada

An Amanuensis is a person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another. Amanuensis Monday is a daily blogging theme which encourages the family historian to transcribe family letters, journals, audiotapes, and other historical artifacts.

My first patrilineal ancestor who came to Canada was François Janvry dit Belair (ca 1736-1817). A French soldier with the Béarn regiment, he arrived in Quebec probably in 1755. His first recorded appearance in Nouvelle-France is as a patient of the Hôtel-Dieu of Quebec on 17 June 1759.[1]

Within two years, he met and courted a young widow, Madame Pierre Boileau (var. Bouleau). François and Marie Elisabeth Martel married on 7 January 1761 in the parish church of Ste-Geneviève (now Pierrefonds), near Montreal.[2]



Marriage record of François Janvry dit Belair, 1761


The French-language text reads as follows:

Lan mil sept cent Soixante un le sept janvier je pretre soussigne […] après avoir publie trois bans de mariage pendant trois […] entre francois janvri dit belaïr fils de charles janvri et de marie lefebvre de la paroisse […] diocese de noyon en picardie d’une part et entre marie Elizabeth martel veuve de pierre boileau fille de louïs martel et de feu marie legaré d’autre part sans […] et apres avoir pris leur mutual Consentement par paroles de present leur ay [donné] benediction nuptialle en presence de nicolas houde louïs […] louï martel paul martel qui ont ainsi que les parties declaré ne savoir signer […].

The English translation of the text:

Year thousand seven hundred sixty one the seven january I priest undersigned […] after having published three bans of marriage during three […] between francois janvri dit belaïr son of charles janvri and marie lefebvre of the parish […] diocese of noyon in picardy of the one part and between marie Elizabeth martel widow of pierre boileau daughter of louïs martel and of late marie legaré of the other part without […] and after receiving their mutual Consentment by words of the present have [given] them nuptial blessing in the presence of nicolas houde louïs […] louï martel paul martel who along with the parties declared not being able to sign […].

Sources:

1. Hôpital Hôtel-Dieu (Quebec, Quebec), hospital register, 1752-1804, no page number (3rd page after the start of June 1759), francois zénéry dit Beller entry, 17 June 1759; Québec (Hôpitaux) (Québec Hôpital Hôtel-Dieu du Précieux-Sang de Québec); digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 21 January 2011).

2. Ste-Geneviève (Pierrefonds, Quebec), parish register, 1756-1775, p. 12 recto, no entry no. (1761), François Janvri – Marie Elizabeth Martel marriage, 7 January 1761; Ste-Geneviève parish; digital image, “Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 30 July 2007).

Copyright © 2013, 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.

Wedding Wednesday: Martineau - Belair



Norbert and Mathilde Martineau Wedding, 1921.


This photo, sent to me over 20 years ago by one of my Dad’s cousins, was taken on Norbert and Mathilde Martineau’s wedding day, 4 January 1921.

The couple, who had known each other all their lives, married in the Roman Catholic church in the village of Ste-Cécile-de-Masham, in Gatineau County, Quebec. Theirs was the first marriage entered in the parish’s register for 1921. The record states that a dispensation for one of the three marriage banns was granted and that there were no impediments to the union. The couple received the nuptial blessing in the presence of Pierre Belair (Mathilde’s father), Isaïe Brazeau (Mathilde’s brother-in-law) and others. Last, Norbert and Mathilde signed their names in the parish register in a clear, legible hand.

Norbert was 24 years old (he had just celebrated his birthday the previous November) and Mathilde was five months shy of her 20th birthday. A younger half-sister of my paternal grandfather Fred Belair, Mathilde was one of five children of Pierre Belair and his second wife Mathilde Cloutier.

I don’t know who took the photograph, but I assume it was either a family member or a friend and neighbor. I also assume that the picture was taken at the Belair family property. (Mathilde in her apron suggests that she just stepped away from her kitchen to go outside for a few moments and be part of the wedding photo.) Norbert and Mathilde (in the centre) are surrounded by their family. Mathilde’s father Pierre is on her right and her mother Mathilde stands on Norbert’s left. Isaïe Brazeau, one of the witnesses, can be seen at the back on the far right of the photo.

Norbert and Mathilde were married for 50 years. He died in June 1971, while Mathilde, who remarried, passed away in April 1973.

Copyright © 2013, Yvonne Demoskoff.

In Memoriam: Fred Belair

Today – December 18 – marks the 123rd anniversary of my paternal grandfather Fred Belair’s birth. Although his baptismal record states that he was born on 26 November 1889, my Pépère Fred once told me that he didn’t believe he was born in November and that someone at the church must have written an incorrect day and month of birth on his baptismal record. Years later, December 18th would be a very special day for my family for three reasons: it was my grandfather's birthday, my parents' wedding anniversary (they married on December 18, 1954) and my younger sister's birthday (born on December 18, 1960).

Born and baptised in Sainte-Cécile-de-Masham, Gatineau County, Quebec, Canada, Fred was the seventh child and fifth son of his parents Pierre and Angélina (Meunier) Belair. He received the names “Jean-Baptiste Ménésippe” at his baptism in the local parish church. Although he used either of his baptismal names as a child and young adult, he preferred to be known as Fred as an adult.

In the summer of 1896, Fred suffered a tragedy when his mother died a few days after giving birth to her eleventh child, a son Joseph who lived two days. His mother Angélina was only 41 years old. With seven surviving children, widower Pierre remarried within a year of his wife’s passing. Fred’s father and new stepmother Mathilde had five children, two sons and three daughters. (After Mathilde died in 1923, Pierre married a third time, to widow Rosalie Lavictoire.)

About 1911, Fred left home to seek work as a labourer in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, USA. During World War I, Fred worked in a munitions factory. During the 1910s and 1920s, Fred also worked in the shipyards of Wisconsin and Minnesota and on the railroad in Canada. He was employed as an ironworker for the Dominion Bridge Company in Montreal in the late 1920s-early 1930s. Later, in the 1940s, Fred was a cook in lumber camps in northern Ontario, Canada.



Fred and Julie Belair on their wedding day, 1926.

In October 1926, Fred married Julie Vanasse in Ottawa. They met through his half-sister Almina Belair, who was one of Julie’s friends. After their wedding, Fred and Julie settled in a part of Ottawa known as LeBreton Flats, which was a poor working area west of the city centre. While here, their first child, Maurice, was born in August 1927. Later, another son and two daughters completed the family unit.

Fred and his family lived in many places in the 1930s and 1940s, including Timmins, Ontario and Blue Water, near Sarnia, Ontario. After they returned to Timmins in the 1950s, Fred retired and he and Julie settled in a small apartment. After Julie passed away in March 1967, Fred continued to live in their one-bedroom home. It wasn’t until advanced old age that he moved to Peterborough, Ontario to live with his daughter Darlene.

In October 1989, Fred’s family and friends gathered in Timmins to celebrate his 100th birthday.


Fred with his children on his 100th birthday, 1989.


Fred died in Peterborough in January 1991; he was 101 years old. His funeral took place in Timmins, and he was interred next to his beloved Julie.

Copyright © 2012, Yvonne Demoskoff.