Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Wednesday’s Child: Alma Desgroseilliers (1904-1907)


Little Alma Desgroseilliers was only three years and six months old when she died. [1]
 

Alma Desgroseilliers with her brothers Eugene and Arthur

Alma with her brothers Eugène (left) and Arthur (right), about 1906.

She was the third child and eldest daughter of Albert and Clémentine (Léveillé) Desgroseilliers.

Born on 14 January 1904 in St-Charles, Ontario, Alma was baptised “Alma Fabiana” three days later in St-Thomas Apôtre church in nearby Warren. [2] Actually, I’m not sure if her godparents brought her to Warren (taking a newborn out in winter doesn’t seem prudent), or if Father Nayl travelled to St-Charles to baptise Alma, and then once back in Warren recorded the details in his church’s sacramental register.

In about 1906 or early 1907, Alma’s parents and her elder brothers (Eugène, my maternal grandfather, and Arthur) moved to Cobalt, northeast of St-Charles, near the Ontario-Quebec border. I don’t know what prompted my great-grandfather Albert to relocate his young family there, but perhaps it had something to do with silver being discovered in Cobalt in 1903. [3] Neither his daughter's death registration nor her burial record indicate what kind of work Albert did at this time. (He had been a farmer in St-Charles.)


Alma, who had been ill with bronchitis for one week, died on 6 July 1907 in Cobalt. [4] She was buried there in the cemetery the next day; her father was present. [5]


How sad it must have been for Albert, Clémentine and their sons when they returned to live in St-Charles in the spring of 1908.


Sources:


1. “Ontario, Canada Deaths, 1869-1932”, digital image, Ancestry.ca (www.ancestry.ca : accessed 20 January 2012), entry for Alma Degrossalier [sic], 6 July 1907; citing Archives of Ontario, Registrations of Deaths - 1869-1932; Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Archives of Ontario; microfilm series MS935, reel 131.


2. “Ontario, Canada Births, 1869-1907”, digital image, Ancestry.ca (www.ancestry.ca : 20 January 2012), entry for Alma Fabi[ana] Desgrosellier [sic] (written as Desgrosellier, indexed as Desgrciellier), 14 January 1904; citing Archives of Ontario, Registrations of Birth and Stillbirths – 1869-1904; Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Archives of Ontario; microfilm series MS929, reel 174. Also, St-Thomas Apôtre (Warren, Ontario), parish register, 1901-1967, p. 12 verso, entry no. 6 (1904), Alma Fabiana Desgroseilliers baptism, 17 January 1904; St-Thomas Apôtre parish; digital image, “Canada, Catholic Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1747-1967”, Ancestry.ca (www.ancestry.ca : 20 January 2012).


3. Wikipedia contributors, "Cobalt, Ontario", Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cobalt,_Ontario&oldid=611476989 : accessed 16 September 2014).


4. “Ontario, Canada Deaths, 1869-1932”, digital image, Ancestry.ca (www.ancestry.ca : accessed 20 January 2012), entry for Alma Degrossalier [sic], 6 July 1907.


5. "Ontario, Roman Catholic Church Records, 1760-1923," digital image, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1942-24489-8758-36?cc=1927566&wc=M6VR-DTP:220997601,220997602,220997603,221004101 : accessed 20 January 2012), Timiskaming > Cobalt > St Hilarion > Baptisms, marriages, burials 1906-1910 > image 26 of 113, entry for Alma DesGroselliers [sic].


Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.

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