Welcome to Madawaska, Maine

http://maineanencyclopedia.com/madawaska/

I was sure some Olsime Lagasse’s descendants would have like very much to virtually visit Madawaska, Maine.

I was not meant to be.

Finding Alsime Lagasse aka Onésime Lagassé in the future might be a Mission Impossible for any of his descendants or his relatives’ descendants since no one has ever linked him before with André Mignier dit l’Agacé.

Unless I had started writing about him here…

Hi Pierre,

My grandmother was the daughter of Olsime Lagasse. Olsime’s parents appear to have been Julien Wilfred Lagasse and Clarisse Lagasse. I’ve noticed you have a Julien Lagasse in your family tree. Perhaps it’s the same one? I’m trying to figure out how Olsime’s wife had the same last name as him, I can not find a different last name on her and I haven’t been able to find any information past Julien and Clarisse. If we do in fact have a relative connection would you mind sharing pictures and information you have, please?

Sometimes people write, and I believe I scare them away with all that I have been writing on Our Ancestors.

This is post No. 1221.

Revisiting the Past

In 2010, Alyce and I met through the Internet. We were third cousins but we did not know that at the time. How we met is quite incredible voyage through time. Alyce had left a message in 2000 on a genealogy forum. I answered back but I never thought that she would reply

She did!

Since then, together we made many many people happy through our mutual interest for preserving the past. This is by far one of my favorite pictures from her collection of old pictures she once thought throwing away since she had no idea who were these people if I remember correctly.

I could write a lot about who’s who on that picture.

In fact I did just that except for one person on that 1921 picture who is sitting on the chair. Olivine, Idala Lagasse’s second wife.

In 2010 we only had her first name and a few pictures, but then in 2015, a reader of Nos ancêtres, the French version of Our Ancestors found my blog…

She had her surname…

Poupard!

Olivine Poupard – LifeStory

Idala Antoine Lagasse – LifeStory

 

Every picture tells a story

This has to be my favourite picture. Well one of my favourite of close to 5,000 pictures of our ancestors. Most were shared by virtual friends on the Internet.

Of those virtual friends three I met in person. All were third cousins: Sandy, Joe, and Frank. Everyone trusted me with their ancestors and their old pictures. They are all here on this blog.

This one came from Alyce whom I never met in person.

In 2010 Alyce had asked for my help in finding who was who on her old pictures.

How could I resist…

The more photos she sent the more I was able to find her lost ancestors and unknown distant cousins like the Moreaus…

And Olivine Poupard.

Scaring people

Searching for dead people on the Internet might be one of the reasons I scare people away when they first contact me.

Another one is writing a blog about it. Writing 1,200 posts on Our Ancestors is a sure winner…

This is post 1201 and I am still wondering if all this is sane just as looking for who is who on old pictures.

Guess I will have to reflect on this before I write about how I met Olivine.

Who’s Who?

Sometimes you have to stop searching for who’s who especially on fuzzy pictures. On the other hand you never know when a picture will reveal something new.

We all know who some people are on this group picture taken after a wedding don’t we? Sam, his brother David, Marie-Anne and her sister Beatrice, and…

Someday someone will write me about either Pauline T. Valois or Beatrice Virgina Ashley, and be gobsmacked.

I have learned the meaning of that word when someone used it in a comment made about Our Ancestors.

I have learned a lot since 2009.

This is post number 1200 enough to leave you speechless…

That’s the whole point behind this blog…

Next time, will I be remembering Olsime…?

 

Remembering a Little Flower Girl

Old pictures have always mesmerised me especially wedding pictures.

This is Marie-Anne and Sam’s wedding. I all but forgot to talk about the little flower girl on the wedding picture.

Senior’s moment I guess.

In my search for who was who on that 1932 wedding picture, I had to use some “clever” deductions. 

First, the bride Marie-Anne Lepage had three sisters… Jeannette, Bertha, and Beatrice. She also had four brothers but that’s another story…

Jeannette Lepage, in the purple dress, was born on April 7th, 1902, and she died on February 23rd, 1996.

This is her on Find a Grave. 

Jeannette would have been 30 years old in 1932 when her sister Marie-Anne Lepage married Sam Lagasse, so the bridesmaid can’t be her on the wedding picture in my own humble opinion. 

Second, Bertha Lepage, who was born in 1904, would have been 28 years-old in 1932 so I don’t think the bridesmaid was Bertha. 

Which leaves us only with Beatrice Lepage, who was born in 1908, being the bridesmaid. She would have been 24 years in 1932.

Is that all important to know who’s who on old pictures and keep writing about it?

…

What about the little flower girl?

Jeannette Lepage had married Henri Valois in the early 1920s. Her first child was Pauline Valois born on August 7th, 1925. Pauline would have been 7 years-old in 1932.

Bertha Lepage married Forrest Ivan Ashley. Their first child was Beatrice Ashley born in 1928. Beatrice would have been four years-old in 1932.

Beatrice Lepage married Harry Ward and they had a son, Harry. 

So we are left with only two plausible answers…

What do you think? Was the flower girl Pauline Valois or Beatrice Ashley?

At first I thought la petite bouquetière was Pauline Valois, but I am not sure anymore.

Remembering Little Claudette

I was looking this morning at my Ancestry tree and was checking Amazing Alyce’s family tree. I was also looking at the pictures Alyce had sent in 2010, pictures she only could identify her father David. She had no idea who were the other people.

 

 

Together we were able to identify who were all these people.

That was seven years ago…

Then I started remembering Little Claudette and her cousin Eugene Albert Moreau.

We once talked about him on the phone then Claudette started crying…

Claudette thought Eugene had died in World War Two. I told her I was going to find out.

That was seven years ago…

This morning I started looking for more information on Ancestry which led me to this on Find a Grave…

 

Since Claudette was on Facebook I wanted to write her a message, but before doing so, I looked at her Ancestry file and then I found this on the Internet…

Which led me to this…

Obituary for Claudette Jean Stackpole

Claudette Jeanne Lagasse Stackpole, 79, of Palatka passed away Wednesday, February 24, 2016 in Crescent City under hospice care. She was born October 4, 1936 in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Claudette was the daughter of Samuel and Marie Lagasse and the sister of Dolores T. Lagasse Dawson.

She was the last surviving member of her immediate family. She graduated from Holy Family High School in New Bedford in 1955. Claudette married Richard Bradford Stackpole(deceased), a graduate of Tufts University in Civil Engineering. Richard was a Civil Engineer in U.S.

Navy and his private career in Engineering lead Claudette to live and travel worldwide. In her younger years, Claudette, who was affectionately known as “C.J.” to her friends, was a homemaker and owned a small tennis shop in Miami, called C.J’s Sportswear and Boutique. She was second generation French Canadian and spoke French fluently. She had a deep faith in Jesus Christ.

She loved to minister to people in the nursing homes, prisons and through food giveaways. She will be dearly missed by all her family and friends. She is survived by her three children and daughter-in-law, Richard B. “Rick”Stackpole, Jr. of Palatka, Lisa Marie Stackpoleof Atlanta, Georgia and Pastor Theodore B. “Ted” and Angie Stackpole of Palatka. Claudette has 5 beautiful grandchildren, Victoria, Skyler, Jaycee, Emilie and Baylee-Anne.

A memorial service will be held at First Assembly of God in Palatka on Sunday, February 28, 2016 at 3:00 p.m. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to First Assembly of God, 3111 St. Johns Ave., Palatka, FL 32177.

Little Claudette will always be remembered…

 

Seven years ago…

I had written this…

A day in a life…

The wedding of Samuel Lagasse and Marie-Anne Lepage

Claudette, Sam’s little girl, sent me this on Tuesday. If you don’t know who Claudette is…

Click here.

There is someone else who is playing ball with us…

He is Claudette’s nephew who sent me this picture and a whole lot more.

Stephen and I are fourth cousins. He lives in Texas. He identified all the people on the photo except the woman on the right. I knew who she was…

Marie Michaud.

Claudette had this picture of Marie Michaud and her two sons Albert and Roger.

Double play…

***

Who’s the bridesmaid and who is the flower girl?

This will be all presumptions from my part. Since the best man is Sam’s brother David, I figure the bridesmaid to be Marie-Anne’s sister.

But who could she be? Marie-Anne Lepage had three sisters…

Denis Lagasser

Something I wrote back in 2013.

http://wp.me/pExNc-2b2

I did indeed make contact with the baby’s descendants in the four generation photograph. 

Not that much interested about ancestors… 

Win some, lose some.

Megaman, Faxanadu, and old pictures

Getting addicted to video games is easy. You just have to defeat the final boss like in Megaman II.

Or in  Faxanadu…

I have done so a few years back when my children were old enough to get addicted to video games. 

In 2007 I almost stopped playing getting instead addicted to old pictures and writing blogs. First one was Nos ancêtres, then its spin-off Our Ancestors, then another one and another one about World War Two, and the list went on and on, enough to be entered in the Guinness Book of Records I guess. 

Enough to scare people away I guess also. If you have been following me from the start you know how addictive writing Our Ancestors can be. 

I understand also when people stop following or are not interested anymore. 

C’est la vie…