Sunday’s Obituary: Alex S. Demosky

Today marks the 36th anniversary of the passing of Alex S. Demosky, a first cousin once removed of my father-in-law Bill Demoskoff.

Alex was the eldest child of Sam and Pearl (Popoff) Demosky, Doukhobor immigrants from Russia. He was born in September 1912 in Buchanan, Saskatchewan, where he lived before moving to British Columbia in the late 1940s.

Alex S. Demosky obituary, 1977.

Source:
Alex S. Demosky, obituary, 24 August 1977, from unidentified newspaper; Demoskoff Family Papers, privately held by Yvonne (Belair) Demoskoff, British Columbia, 2013. Yvonne acquired an assortment of family memorabilia (including Alex’s obituary) in January 2012 from her father-in-law William (Bill) Demoskoff.

Copyright © 2013, Yvonne Demoskoff.

In Memoriam: Maurice Belair

Maurice Belair, my Dad (or Pa, as I used to call him in French) would have been 86 years old today.

Dad was born on 2 August 1927 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He was his parents Fred and Julie’s first child. Dad was baptized at St-Jean Baptiste Roman Catholic church on Empress Avenue in Ottawa, where his parents married the previous October.

Maurice Belair (about 3 or 4 years old), 1930-1931

Dad grew up in Ottawa and Montreal, where his father Fred worked as an iron worker for the Dominion Bridge Company. Dad’s sister Jeanne (Joan) and brother Ray were born in Montreal. The family lived for a time in Chapeau, in Pontiac County, Quebec (where Julie was from), and then moved back to Ottawa, and soon after to nearby South March and Corkery.

In about 1934, the family moved to Fauquier in northeastern Ontario. While here, Dad received the sacrament of Confirmation at Ste-Agnès RC church in September 1935. Four years later in May 1939, he made his profession of faith at Ste-Agnès. (The certificate he received to commemorate the event is still in our possession. You can see it in Family History Through the Alphabet – R is for…) It was probably on one of these two occasions that he received a large, wood crucifix, which I wrote about in Treasure Chest Thursday: The Crucifix.

In the early 1940s, Dad and his family moved to Timmins, where his brother Ray and younger sister Darlene went to school. Later, they moved to Blue Water, near Sarnia, Ontario. By the mid-1950s, Dad’s parents Fred and Julie were back in Timmins, but he remained in southern Ontario where he worked as a welder.

In about 1952, Dad met my mom Jacqueline when she worked as a counter girl at a family-owned corner store in Blue Water. They courted for some time, and then married in Sarnia on 18 December 1954. After they married, Dad went wherever there was welding work for him in southern Ontario and Quebec. (I wrote about how Dad started out as a welder in Workday Wednesday: Maurice Belair, Welder.) When Mom was expecting their first child in 1958, they decided to settle down in Timmins. Dad’s parents and sister Joan lived there, so choosing that town seemed a logical choice.

One autumn day in 1979, Dad was injured while working in Bracebridge, Ontario. (See Workday Wednesday: The Pipeline Accident.) He spent a few months recovering, and then decided to give up being a full-time welder. He, Mom and us three children (my sister Marianne, brother Raymond and myself) moved to British Columbia. Here Dad and his brother Ray started a road-building business.

Dad spent the remainder of his life in Hope, where he passed away on 6 May 1996. He had suffered from coronary heart disease for a few years and died of a heart attack. I’ve written about his obituary (Sunday’s Obituary: My Father, Maurice Belair) and his gravemarker (Tombstone Tuesday: Maurice Belair.)

Copyright © 2013, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Friday Photo: Jacqueline and Her Sisters

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.)


Jacqueline and her sisters, 1971

Who:
My Mom Jacqueline (far right) and her sisters (left to right) Mariette, Madeleine, Normande and Simone.

What:
Five sisters gathered together. (Jeanne d'arc, the youngest, is not here.)

When:
Summer of 1971.

Where:
Simone’s home in Corunna, Ontario.

Why:
I don’t know why Mom and her sisters posed for this photo. My parents didn’t travel much from our home in northeastern Ontario to southwestern Ontario where my aunts Mariette, Simone and Normande lived, so I’m not sure why Mom is in Corunna. (Maybe Dad didn’t go, and Mom travelled south with Madeleine, who also lived in northeastern Ontario.) There are four other photos in this series, but none of them seem to offer clues as to the reason for this picture. Maybe my Ontario cousins will see this photo and will let me know why the Desgroseilliers sisters were photographed in the summer of 1971.

I love this photo, because it shows my Mom with her sisters. I loved my aunts, but I didn’t often see them. (It was about an 8 hour car journey from our home in Timmins to their homes in Sarnia and Corunna.) Whenever the sisters got together, someone always took a photo or two of them, so at least I got the benefit of ‘seeing’ them in pictures if not in person.

Copyright © 2013, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Sunday’s Obituary: Joe Saucier

Joseph Saucier obituary, 1993


Joseph Saucier was born on 6 March 1922 in the parish of St. Raphael, near South Glengarry in eastern Ontario, Canada. Joe, who served in World War II and in Korea, married my Dad’s first cousin Lucille (Lou) Potvin in 1946. I used to visit him and Lou at their home when I was a student at the University of Ottawa.

Joe died on 27 July 1993 in Ottawa and was buried there in Hope Cemetery. I will always remember him as very nice man, kind, soft-spoken, with a hint of mischievousness.

Source:

“Joseph Olier Saucier”, obituary, undated clipping (1993), from unidentified newspaper; Demoskoff Family Papers, privately held by Yvonne (Belair) Demoskoff, British Columbia, 2013.

Copyright © 2013, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Tombstone Tuesday: George Demoskoff

George Demoskoff gravemarker


This past Sunday, I posted my husband’s uncle George’s obituary. Today, I follow up that post with a scanned image of his gravemarker. George is interred in the U.S.C.C. Doukhobor Cemetery in Grand Forks, British Columbia.

George’s gravemarker reads:

LOVING HUSBAND [&] FATHER

GEORGE W. DEMOSKOFF

1911 – 1980

HE IS NOT DEAD BUT SLEEPETH

Copyright © 2013, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Sunday’s Obituary: George Demoskoff

George Demoskoff obituary, 1980

George Demoskoff, my husband’s paternal uncle, was a younger son of Russian Doukhobor immigrants Wasyl and Luchenia (Tomelin) Demosky.

George lived most of his life in Saskatchewan and British Columbia, and for a short time in California, USA, where he sought relief for a heart condition. (I’ve written about his time at the Hidden Valley Health Ranch here.)

George died on 16 July 1980 in Grand Forks, British Columbia. He is buried there in the USCC (Sion) Cemetery.

Source: “George Demoskoff”, obituary, undated clipping (July 1980), from unidentified newspaper; Demoskoff Family Papers, privately held by Yvonne (Belair) Demoskoff, British Columbia, 2013. Yvonne acquired an assortment of family memorabilia (including George’s obituary) in January 2012 from her father-in-law William (Bill) Demoskoff.

Copyright © 2013, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Wordless Wednesday: George Vanasse and His Sisters

George Vanasse with his sisters (left to right) Mary, Agnès and Celia (Cécile). They’re gathered for the wedding of George’s son Armand on 5 June 1950 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Copyright © 2013, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Proof Summary: Pierre Desgroseilliers’ Death Date

I recently came across an online article about organizing “your findings in a way so that readers can understand how you came to a logical conclusion”.¹ I’ve been working on trying to prove that an ancestor (my maternal great-great-grandfather) didn’t die on the date seen in a local history book. After reading Susan Jackman’s article, I decided to write my own proof summary about my findings and use her summary as a model.

Proof statements, proof summaries, and proof arguments are the "three options for presenting a conclusion as proved".² I'm still learning about all these new terms and how they are part of the GPS – the Genealogical Proof Standard.

Here’s how I did.

Proof Summary: Pierre Desgroseilliers’ Death Date

Date: 22 June 2013

Compiler: Yvonne Demoskoff

Subject: Pierre Desgroseilliers, born 1841, son of François and Elisabeth (Lemieux) Desgroseilliers

Project Definition: Prove that Pierre Desgroseilliers did not die on 28 March 1901.

Background: Two sources give three dates of death for Pierre Desgroseilliers. The first source, a local history book (Historique de la paroisse Saint-Charles) was published in 1945, some forty years after Pierre’s demise. It contains two different dates of death: 28 March 1901 and 1904 (day and month unspecified).³ The second source is Pierre’s tombstone. The tombstone says 20 March 19[??], but the online image is not quite clear enough to distinguish the year of death.⁴

Proof Argument: Pierre did not die on 28 March 1901, as stated in the local history book, because at least three records show him as alive after this date.

Analysis of Findings:

- 1901: Pierre, his wife Flavie and their younger children are enumerated on the 1901 census of Canada in Casimir Township in the district of Nipissing in Ontario.⁵ The official census date was 31 March 1901; therefore, as long as Pierre was correctly reported as being alive on this date, he could not have died on 28 March 1901.

- 1903: Pierre was present as a witness at the funeral of a widow on 18 May 1903.⁶ Pierre, whose name is rendered as “Pierre Desgroseilier” in the burial record, was one of the two recorded witnesses at the burial of [–?–] Lauzon, whose age is not stated and whose deceased husband’s name is not stated.

- 1903: Pierre and his wife Flavie are named as godparents at the baptism of an infant child, Ernest Xavier Gagnon, on 6 December 1903.⁷

Conclusion: Pierre did not die on 28 March 1901 as reported in the local history book, because at least three records put him in a given place at a given time after this date.

Footnotes:

1. Susan Jackman, “Where Is Your Proof?”, Archives, 27 September 2011 (http://www.archives.com/experts/jackman-susan/where-is-your-proof.html : accessed 22 June 2013).

2. Thomas W. Jones, Mastering Genealogical Proof (Arlington, Virginia: National Genealogical Society, 2013), 84.

3. Lionel Séguin, Historique de la paroisse Saint-Charles (Saint-Charles, Ont., 1945: 232 and 233); digital images, Our Roots (http://www.ourroots.ca/ : accessed 18 June 2013). The author, Father Séguin, explains in the book’s foreword, that he visited each family and gathered all the details and information, which he adds was often contradictory, to compile his history of St-Charles.

4. “St Charles (Dunnet Township) Gravemarker Cemetery Gallery”, digital images, Northern Ontario Canada Gravemarker Gallery (http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~murrayp/sudbury/st_char/public/index.htm : accessed 17 June 2013), photograph, grave marker of Pierre Desgrosseilliers [sic], St. Charles, Ontario.

5. 1901 Census of Canada, Casimir Township, Nipissing, Ontario, population schedule, subdistrict F1-2, p. 2, dwelling 15, family 15, Piere Desgrossillier [sic]; digital image, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 24 August 2007); citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm T-6428 to T-6556 [T-6483]. The official enumeration date for this census was 31 March 1901.

6. St Thomas the Apostle (Warren, Ontario), parish register, 1901-1910, no page number (but digital image 4 of 25), entry no. 3 (left hand side of booklet) (1903), [–?–] Lauzon burial, 18 May 1903; St Thomas the Apostle parish; digital image, “Ontario, Roman Catholic Church Records, 1760-1923”, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org : 15 May 2013).

7. St-Thomas Apôtre (Warren, Ontario), parish register, 1901-1967, p. 13, entry no. 88 (1903), Ernest Xavier Gagnon baptism, 6 December 1903; St-Thomas Apôtre parish; digital image, “Ontario, Canada, Catholic Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1747-1967”, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 18 June 2013). Ernest Xavier Gagnon was the infant son of Augustin and Marie (Couvrette) Gagnon.

Copyright © 2013, Yvonne Demoskoff.