Connecting Canada to France

If you want to know where in France the Alberts came from, then this is the post for you.
The Albert Family Book is a genealogy on Wilfrid Albert, but it also contains information on the area of France where the first Alberts came from. The book was written by Gabriel Drouin and delivered to Wilfrid Albert in March 1948. Gabriel Drouin was the son of Joseph Drouin, who founded the Drouin Genealogical Insitute (Institut genealogique Drouin) in 1899. The institute was for a while the most important company performing genealogical researches in Quebec.
The book is now in the possession of Roland Albert and safely kept at his home in Westbrook, Maine. I took digital images of all the pages last summer. Then I traveled to Lincoln, Maine to the home of my friend, Margo Kelly, who kindly translated the book orally. Margo is a French teacher at Lee Academy. Many thanks go to Margo for taking the time to translate this material during her vacation.

The genealogy of Wilfrid Albert is represented in the hand-written marriage records of the Albert ancestors. The above record shows the marriage of Ferdinand Albert and Georgiana Hebert, the parents of Auguste and Wilfrid Albert. Each marriage record in the book also shows the names of the bridegroom's parents and the bride's parents.
 
As you can see from page 29 of the book (shown below), the genealogy has been traced back to Pierre Albert with his marriage to Louise Grondin in 1702.  If you notice, the name Lucon has been underlined by Mr. Drouin because it represents the dioceses in France where Pierre comes from.

Upon a google search, I found numerous genealogical references to Pierre Albert including one that calls him the founder of the Albert family in New France. The Roy and Boucher Genealogy site gives his birth year as 1672 and his birth place as Poitou, an area in western France. Lucon is the parish and Poitou is the region. In my few years of genealogy research, this ancester is one of the earliest I have found - Pierre was born 132 years before Napolean became Emperor of France!

A map from the Albert book is shown above pointing out the exact location of Poitou in France. The family tree mentioned above tells about an even earlier ancestor, Rene Albert, born in the same town as Pierre in the year 1650.

The Gagnons of Saint Malo

The parents of Bernadette (Gagnon) Albert, Pierre and Diana Gagnon, brought many children into the world. In the 1910 United States Census in Westbrook, Maine, we see the whole gang. Families this size were very common for French Canadians.

Of course, they would never know that having this many children would provide a gold mine for a genealogist interested in tracking family history.
So far, I have located four birth records from the group including Bernadette’s (shown below). Hope you know French…but to help out, Jane Lindsey from the California Genealogical Society provides a loose translation below the image.

30 march 1902  We the undersigned priest of this parish have baptized Bernadette Alexandra born the twenty seventh of this month, legitimate daughter of Pierre Gagnon, day laborer and of Diana St Pierre of this parish.The god father is Wilfred Lemieux? and god mother Delia Gagnon also of this parish of Saint-Venant-de-Hereford and the father has declared he knows the signer. -L E Gendron  Priest

Peter and Diana Gagnon were both born in Canada in the 1860’s. Can you imagine being around at the time of the American Civil War? Of course, the Gagnons did not move to the states until the 1900’s. Their last record in the Canadian Census was in 1901.
While the Gagnon’s hail from Saint Malo, Quebec, the more famous Saint Malo is the one in France. It is a walled port city on the gulf of Saint-Malo, an inlet of the English Channel. A couple of interesting facts from this area of France:  the founder of Canada, Jacques Cartier, was born in Saint Malo, and Saint Malo was a base for French pirates in the 17th and 18th centuries.

One of the neat things about writing a blog is choosing pictures to attach to text. In my writing, I like to relate time and place and try to connect the family context to the context of the larger society (family history to general history). One of the most fascinating achievements of Gothic architecture in Europe is located on the Gulf of Saint Malo - the Benedictine Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel - founded in 708.
The location of Saint Malo in Canada is one of the eastern townships of Quebec province. The website called Eastern Townships describes local residents living in an “environment of forests, farms, and waterways that supply their livelihood”.  At 2100 feet it is the highest municipality in Quebec. The parish of Saint Malo was established in 1863, the same year that Pierre Gagnon was born, and incorporated as a municipality in 1910.

Here is a map of this town’s location and its proximity to New Hampshire. If you are interested in visiting Saint Malo, they have a harvest festival every August.
Sources for some text and pictures in this blog entry:  answers.com, easterntownships.org, encyclopedia.com
The birth and census records come from ancestry.com.

Introducing the Ancestors - Ferdinand Albert (1864-1929)

Ferdinand Albert was the father of August ("Gus") Albert. He was born in Caraquet, New Brunswick (more information on Caraquet) and made his way to Westbrook to work in the mills like so many of our ancestors. In 1900, he was thirty-five living on Winslow Lane, and listed as a silk weaver on the federal census record.  He worked at the Haskell Silk Mill, one of the foremost silk manufacturers in New England.

The Falls located next to the Haskell Silk Mill

"The business began in a wooden building on the west side of Bridge St., very near the falls as this photograph shows.  The Haskell Silk Mill was the only silk mill in Maine and one of the oldest in New England. This was one of the industries that carried the name of Westbrook throughout the entire country and attracted an industrious population to the town." Quoted text and photo courtesy of Westbrook Historical Society.

    Ferdinand emigrated from Canada in 1887 and married a Hebert in 1895. On the Albert gravestone, she is listed as "Georgienne H".

In a taped interview in 1990, Memere reported that Georgienne died of breast cancer at the age of 42 when Pepere was just 11 years old. Many years later, Mr. Albert suffered a stroke. Memere and Pepere became his caretakers. They were living on a second floor apartment on Cole Street in Westbrook at the time. It had four little rooms and was located across the street from St. Hyacinth Church. As the family got larger, Memere and Pepere decided they needed more living space so they bought a lot nearby to have a house built. In December 1927, they moved into the new house on Bridge Street, and had a bathroom installed on the bottom level to accommodate Mr. Albert.                                                                                                               

  Soon after the move to their new residence, Memere and Pepere made arrangements for Mr. Albert to live at  the Marcotte Home in Lewiston, Maine, because it got to be too much to take care of him with four young children - Pauline, their last child, was born in September 1928. Mr. Albert enjoyed going to chapel and chatting with the other residents. He died a few months later of a heart attack having resided at Marcotte for six months. I am hoping some other pictures of Mr. Albert will eventually surface. 
Pictured above: The Albert family headstone at St Hyacinth Cemetary in Westbrook, Maine.

Family Treasures

Three family treasures have already been mentioned in earlier posts: the Wilfrid Genealogy Book from 1948, the Brookfield Clothing Award (a gold statue) won by Pepere around 1960, and the 1990 audio recording of Memere and Aunt Jo.  By family members responding to this post, we can create an inventory of other valued family possessions. Two books in my own library were signed by Wilfrid Albert and passed on to me by Sister Rebecca:
The Poems of Longfellow, signed by Wilfrid on July 16. 1959, and
The Reader's Digest of Books by Helen Rex Keller, signed by Wilfrid in 1941.

Here are some additional family heirlooms:

1. A vase given to Memere as a gift from Wilfrid in the 1940's.

2. Painting by Sister Rebecca

3. A boudoir bench to hold dolls from Pauline's youth.

4. These hand carved statues were owned by Wilfrid Albert. Paul Albert provides some information about them:

One was sculpted in Switzerland from a famous school of sculpture and depicts a farmer representing one of his grandfathers. The other was carved in a famous carving school in Quebec and depicts a fisherman representing his other grandfather.

For family history purposes, the two items of most value by far are the Genealogy book of Wilfrid Albert and the audio recording done by Becky in 1990.  Thank goodness we have a librarian in the family who took an early interest to preserve something like the voices of our elders.  What else do we have out there to enrich our family's legacy!?

Reunions and Holidays

Besides the traditional Christian holidays, it seems the most special days for the Alberts were the Valle reunions. We would all meet at Valle's Steak House near the turnpike in Westbrook but I don't remember how often we used to gather. These get-togethers were always fun. Besides good food, we got to see all the cousins together in one place, and everyone seemed to be in good moods!

Today it seems we only get together when someone marries or dies with the exception of the Bernie Girls. Sue explains how the Bernie's Girls got formed (sounds almost like a singing group~!):

When Memere was dying--and in that nursing home at the very end, I told her I would make her a premise that I would keep the Albert cousins together---THEN, I backed up a bit after thinking that might be a bit much, so I said, "Well, at least the girl cousins.  We'll meet every now and then and remember how we all grew up together. We'll call ourselves Bernie's Girls."

     She laughed and said, "That'll be fun. I wish I could be there with you."

    I said, "You will be!"

Albert reunions of the far past included summer trips to Limerick to visit Memere's sister, Marie. I retell the story from talking to Pauline: "We used to go have family reunions at the farm with all my mother’s family and all my cousins. They had a big field where all the food was laid out. Some of the guys played ball, and one time somebody threw an egg at Pepere as a joke but it wasn't received as such."

Christmas was a big holiday growing up. It was certainly more materialistic than it was religious for me. This holiday was the busiest time of year for visitors both family and friends. What about Christmas Eve - always fun huh?  Here's an early Albert Christmas Eve story:  Memere and Pepere went to midnight mass. Pauline spoke to Lorraine, “Has Santa Claus come yet?”  She said, “Well, I don't know, let’s go down and peek.”  So they all went downstairs and found all the presents were there. When Memere and Pepere came home, they found the kids playing with all the unwrapped gifts! Pauline remembers getting a doll carriage that year. 

Sacred Ground

Last summer, Uncle Roland and I met to talk about family history of the Alberts. The topic of Pepere's business came up, I became very interested in the information that he was sharing with me.  That meeting motivated me to want to write a larger piece about "The Men's Shop".  Next time I am in Maine,  I am hoping I can capture Roland's attention again to get a fuller picture and history of this once great family business.

The image below was taken from the 1924-25 edition of the "Directory of Westbrook" (page 204). It lists the clothing businesses operating at that time. Benoit's is the business where Pepere started working as a fourteen year old boy.

I remember when my brothers and sisters used to visit Pepere at the Men's Shop. It was like we were entering sacred ground. Even though we were kids, he'd always greet us like we were VIP's, and was always happy to see us! There was a time I worked in the backroom folding clothes but I hated it just like Pepere did when he first started working at Benoits. Like him, I preferred to be interacting with people.

When I asked some of my students the other day what their earliest memory was, one girl said she remembered ushering as a little girl at her church. She must have viewed going to church as a special place because of the importance her family placed on its role. We viewed the Men's Shop in the same way - a special place where the magic of selling and cultivating customers was going on.
Pepere was president of the Westbrook Chamber of Commerce for a time and around 1960, he received one of the most distinguished recognitions in the clothing industry - the Brookfield Clothing Award. The article shown here came from one of my mother's scrapbooks. The source is most likely the Westbrook American.

Centenarian Memere

Photo collage by Bruce Siulinski.
Thanks to Becky who had Memere and Aunt Jo sit down in 1990, an extended conversation was recorded for posterity. This recording has allowed me to learn a lot about the early histories of both the Alberts and the Gagnons. Bernadette Alexandra Gagnon was born on March 27, 1902 in St. Malo, Quebec, just over the border of Vermont. She became an Albert on February 11, 1924 when she married Auguste Albert. For a perspective of something else happening in the year of Memere's birth: one of the coolest buildings in New York City, the Flatiron, was completed. The picture below is from Ardent Editions Historic Photographs and was photographed by August Loeffler.

As mentioned in an earlier post, Pepere stopped going to school at an early age and started selling clothes before he became an adult. The same is true of Memere...she stopped going to school at age 13 and began working at the mill when she was 15. She later changed jobs working the counter at a women's clothing store right next door to where Pepere was working and the rest is history!

Memere's parents were both born in Quebec but they met in Westbrook. Families like the Gagnon's and St. Pierre's came to Westbrook to work in the mills. Many underage offspring would go to work at these sites and their paychecks would directly support their families-as was the case with Memere. Osias Gagnon, one of Memere's brothers, actually died at the age of 16 from an accident at the mill.

I remember Memere as being sharp and stout. She had a kind of toughness about her. This quality of resiliency must have contributed to her becoming an a centenarian. She always showed intense care and love for her familly - nothing else was more important to her.
By the example of Memere's long life, it seems the longevity gene exists in the Albert blood. How many of you know that Pepere's sister, Antoinette Gallant, lived to 101 also?  So...what contributes to a long life?  Besides genetic predisposition, one's health habits certainly make a difference. What are your thoughts on what factors influence a long life? Please answer the poll on the upper right of the blog. Also, it would be great to hear of your stories and thoughts about Memere.

 

Pauline, Memere and Roland

100th Birthday Party and Reunion in Portland, ME in 2002.