Family Visit to Maine - Part 2

With the help of MaryAnn Albert, many pictures were taken during my recent trip to Maine of the former homes of the Albert and Gagnon ancestors in Westbrook.

These two families both moved to Westbrook from Canada in the early 1900's to work in the mills. Their residences were in close proximity to the mills for obvious reasons of having easy walking assess to their jobs.

Why did our ancestors emigrate to Maine?  The best answer to this question would have come from our great grandparents of course, but we hardly remember what they look like let alone what they ever said about their lives. To get a sense why French Canadian families left their homeland, I studied a document from a website on Quebec history. There I found a paper called "French Canadian Emigration to the United States1840-1930" written by Claude Bélanger. He points out that many families left a traditional rural society and "entered an industrial world, alien to them by virtue of its way of life, language and religion".

What pulled people to move away from their traditional roots were the chances of more prosperity than what they currently had. Their traditional ways of life and religion were not left behind. Besides a strong work ethic, French Canadian culture of Westbrook centered around the St. Hyacinth Catholic Church and most of the children attended the Catholic school across the street until grade eight (shown above). Classes were held in French in the mornings and English in the afternoons.

According to Mr. Belanger, the population of Quebec surged in the time period from 1784 and 1844 creating a deficit of farmland. Even before the population growth, agricultural success was limited by other factors such as a short growing season and distant access to major markets. Surely working class families, like the Gagnons of St. Malo, also must have experienced the same economic downturn causing them to look to the growing industrialism in the states.

Genealogy involves research and even though it was not a priority on my trip, I did get to search for records, pictures and newspaper articles with Mary Ann at the Walker library and at the Cumberland County Courthouse land records office. Here she is locating a map in the Plats room of a Pine Point property that Auguste and Bernadette Albert transferred to Jeanne and Ray Lebel in 1959. Auguste Albert had so many properties bought and sold over the years that we grew tired from writing a list of the transactions.

Picture Party in Westbrook - an Albert Family Gathering

On May 8, 2010, more than a third of the Albert cousins gathered at the home of Paul Albert in Westbrook, Maine to celebrate family history and mingle in a comfortable setting with great refeshments provided by Janet Albert and the Bernie's girls.  The cousins were well-represented from all families. Albert elders, Roland and Jeanne, were there to represent the oldest generation and Charles Albert (great grandson of Auguste Albert) was there to represent a younger generation. The picture below shows most everyone in attendance.

Front row: Becky Albert, Nancy Albert, Janet Albert, Claudia Gallant, Jeanne Lebel, Roland Albert.
Back row: Diane Bell, Peter Albert, Paul Albert, Paul Lebel, Susan Lebel Young, Craig Siulinski, MaryAnn Albert. Jim Siulinski is taking the photo.

Besides the obvious benefit of keeping in touch with family, an event like this one underscores the point that family history is not just about telling about the ones who lived before us. Family history is also about sharing stories and spending time with any and all family members regardless of age. What better way to generate stories than to take out old family pictures. Many of the pictures shared at the party were not dated or notated with details. Even without any picture details, we can tell that this formal picture of Ferdinand Albert, August Albert's father, is surely the oldest photo shown at the party. Upon further study, I will provide information regarding dress and culture of the time period in which Ferdinand lived. He came to maturity in the mid 1880's.

Of all  the pictures collected, I am particularly fascinated in images of Auguste Albert's generation and before. Nancy Albert offered this image of another fifth generation family member: Pierre Gagnon, the father of  Bernadette Gagnon Albert, shown here with Bernadette's sister, Josephine Gagnon Rocheleau. The picture was taken at a 1960 wedding at St. Hyacinth's Church in Westbrook, Maine.

Other photos scanned at the party were of Pine Point in the 1950's and Florida folks during winter visits. The experience of having family members gather to share and scan old pictures has spurred me on to create more blog posts to highlight certain pictures collected during the trip this month. By doing so, an opportunity will be provided for any family to offer feedback on the pictures by adding a comment at the end of the post or by sending an email directly to me. I look forward to sharing these photos with you all. Finally, a fun way to close my post is to show Diane's brush with fame:

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.