Mile End

Nineteenth-century maps and other documents show the name Mile End as the crossroads at Saint-Laurent Road (now Boulevard) and what is now Mont-Royal Avenue. Originally, this road was Côte Sainte-Catherine Road (heading west) and Tanneries Road (heading east). It is probable that the name Mile End was inspired by the East London suburb of the same name. 

Contrary to popular belief, the place is not precisely a mile away from any official marker. It is, however, a mile north along Saint-Laurent from Sherbrooke Street, which in the early 19th century marked the boundary between the urban area and open countryside. (Several decades later, the Mile End train station near Bernard Street was situated coincidentally one more mile north along Saint-Laurent from the original crossroads.)


Mile End was also the first important crossroads north of the tollgate set up in 1841 at the city limits of 1792. From the crossroads to the city limits the distance was 0.4 miles (0.64 km). The city limits were located 100 chains (1.25 miles or about 2 km) north of the fortification wall, and intersected Saint-Laurent just south of the current Duluth Avenue.

As early as 1810, there was a Mile End Hotel and tavern, operated by Stanley Bagg, an American-born entrepreneur and father of the wealthy landowner Stanley Clark Bagg. The earliest known published references to Mile End are advertisements placed by Stanley Bagg, in both English and French, in The Gazette during the summer of 1815. He announced in July: "Farm for sale at St. Catherine [i.e., Outremont], near Mile End Tavern, about two miles from town...". On 7 August, he inserted the following:

STRAYED or STOLEN from the Pasture of Stanley Bagg, Mile End Tavern, on or about the end of June last, a Bay HORSE about ten years old, white face, and some white about the feet. Any person who will give information where the Thief or Horse may be found shall receive a reward of TEN DOLLARS and all reasonable charges paid. STANLEY BAGG. Montreal, Mile End, August 4, 1815.

A photograph of 1859 shows members of the Montreal Hunt Club at the Mile End tavern.

The road variously known as Chemin des Tanneries (Tannery Road), Chemin des Carrières (Quarry Road), or Chemin de la Côte-Saint-Louis led to a tannery and to limestone quarries used for the construction of much of Montreal's architecture. 

The village of Côte Saint-Louis (incorporated 1846) sprung up near the quarries, its houses clustered east of the Mile End district around the present-day intersection of Berri Street and Laurier Avenue. 

It was to serve this village that a chapel of the Infant Jesus was established in 1848 near Saint Lawrence Road, on land donated by Pierre Beaubien. In 1857-8, the chapel was replaced by the church of Saint Enfant Jésus du Mile End. 

The church, made even more impressive by a new façade in 1901-3, was the first important building in what would become Mile End.

The Irish Churches of Quebec - M is for Saint Michael the Archangel

The Church of St. Michael and St. Anthony is a Roman Catholic church located in Mile End, Montreal. It was originally built as the Church of St. Michael and frequented by Irish Catholics. Because of the growth of the Polish community in the area, in 1964 a Polish mission was inaugurated in the church and the church's name was expanded to "St. Michael and St. Anthony".

The church exemplifies cultural hybridity, being a Byzantine-styled church, built for Irish Catholics, in a multicultural neighbourhood, and being home today to mostly Poles and Italians. The church has also been noted for its Byzantine Revival architecture, complete with a dome and minaret-styled tower, making it "one of the more unique examples of church architecture in Montréal.

Construction on the Church of St. Michael the Archangel  began in 1914, for what would grow to become the largest anglophone parish in Montreal. After a brief delay following the commencement of World War I, the church was completed in 1915 at a cost of $232,000, with a capacity of 1,400 people.

Though Mile End was originally a predominately Irish neighbourhood, the Polish community grew such that the two communities "merged into one", and to reflect this change, St. Anthony was appended to the parish name, reflecting the "Conventual Franciscans' devotion to St. Anthony of Padua."

Today, the church is recognised as the focal point for the Polish Catholics of Montreal.

The church was built in the Neo-Byzantine style of architecture, accompanied by a large turquoise dome and minaret-style tower. It was designed by architect Aristide Beaugrand-Champagne [fr] (1876–1950), who was inspired by the Hagia Sophia (originally an Orthodox basilica) in Istanbul (formerly Constantinople). The church also features elements of Gothic and Roman architecture, as well as lombard bands and window tracery reminiscent of Middle Ages castles.

The church's dome features one of the first uses of reinforced concrete in Quebec.

The interior roof of the dome features a neo-Renaissance-style fresco of St. Michael watching the fall of the angels, painted by Italian Guido Nincheri, who painted other churches in Montreal.

Bertha Burns  1892 - 1955

My maternal grandmother, Bertha Burns Bernard had her funeral service at Saint Michael the Archangel in September of 1955 and then interred at Cote de Neige Cemetery.

Bertha was born in 1892 in Quebec City to George Burns and Elizabeth Williamson, the youngest of four children, the others being Albert, William, and Ethel. She and her mother, Elizabeth moved to Mile End in Montreal around 1920 after the death of her father George.

Bertha married Ovila Bernard in 1925 and they had four children, Norman, Pauline, George, and Lorne. 

Bertha only had two grandchildren as Norman and George died young and never married. She never knew her only grandson as he was born 9 years after her death.

She was able to enjoy her only grand-daughter for four years, it would have to be enough as fate took the child to the United States and Bertha would die under mysterious circumstances three years later.

Partridge Island, N.B.

The Celtic Cross Memorial

Partridge Island is a Canadian island located in the Bay of Fundy off the coast of Saint John, New Brunswick within the city's Inner Harbour.

The island is a provincial historic site and was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1974. It lies on the west side of the mouth of the Saint John River
Partridge Island was first established as a quarantine station and pest house in 1785 by the Saint John Royal Charter, which also set aside the island for use as a navigational aids station and a military post. Its first use as a Quarantine Station was not until 1816. A hospital was constructed on the island in 1830.

It received its largest influx of immigrants in the 1840's during the Great Famine, known as the "Irish Potato Famine", when a shortage of potatoes occurred because of potato blight striking Ireland's staple crop, causing millions to starve to death or otherwise emigrate, mainly to North America. During the famine, some 30,000 immigrants were processed by the island's visiting and resident physicians, with 1196 dying at Partridge Island and the adjacent city of Saint John during the Typhus epidemic of 1847. During the 1890's there were over 78,000 immigrants a year being examined or treated on the island.

A memorial to the Irish immigrants of the mid-1840's was set up on the island in the 1890's but by World War One it had deteriorated. In 1926 the Saint John City Cornet Band approached Saint John contractor George McArthur who agreed to lead a campaign to build a suitable monument. The Celtic Cross memorial to the Irish dead of 1847 was dedicated in 1927. 

This was restored and rededicated in 1985. In the early and mid-1980's the Saint John Jewish Community, the Loyal Orange Lodge, the Partridge Island Research Project, and the Partridge Island & Harbour Heritage Inc., a company that was registered in 1988 and dissolved in 2004 erected memorials to the Protestant, Catholic and Jewish immigrants buried in one of the six island graveyards, as well as a monument to all of the Irish dead from 1830 to the 1920's.

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Remberance Canadian War Dead

Rememberance

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The Past Whispers

Settling the American West: the Role of the Canadiens and Métis-part 1

Maple Stars and Stripe Podcast



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Why are 6,000 Irish buried under a Montreal traffic island?

 

The Irish Diaspora Run sees Michael Collins running almost 900km between June 10th and July 10th, from Grosse Île to Toronto, tracing the steps taken by thousands of Irish immigrants who fled the Famine in 1847. This is the second of his weekly updates for The Irish Times.

The most striking fact that emerged from the research I conducted on the passage of some 100,000 who left Ireland aboard the infamous coffin ships in the spring of 1847 was how the municipal authorities, in tandem with the religious orders of Montreal, marshaled their collective resources to care and minister to the sick and dying Irish…more

 

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Sleuth Along Interstate Highways for your Ancestors

 

The thought of your ancestors of 100 or 200 years ago traveling along a modern-day interstate highway may seem amusing as interstate highways didn’t exist until the 1950s. Yet, it is quite possible that your ancestors traveled along the same routes as today’s interstates, plus or minus a very few miles… more

 

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The Search for Missing Friends

 

I found a book called The Search for Missing Friends, Vol. I I think the price was $3, it’s a fat book, over 600 pages compiling the advertisments placed in the Boston Pilot of Irish immigrants looking for friends and loved ones. Now I see Boston College has inventoried these listings and have placed them in a searchable database.

“THERE WAS A TIDAL WAVE of Irish immigration to North America in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Some came to escape political upheaval, famine, and poverty, while others simply hoped to start a better life in the new world. During this time, formal communication was by the written word, but an international postal system was just emerging, making it difficult for those who had immigrated to keep in touch with those they had left behind. The result was that many of those in Ireland had no idea where their relatives and friends might be. Many new Irish Americans simply became “lost” to those who cared for them.”

You may view the database here.

©2016 Linda Sullivan – Simpson
The Past Whispers
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Origins of Celtic Christmas

 

Christmas has been marked in Ireland since St Patrick brought Christianity to the island in the fifth century. Over the centuries pagan Celtic customs merged with Christianity to produce some uniquely Celtic Christmas traditions for the winter festival. While not all are practiced today, some can still be seen – customs which date back to earlier, less commercial times.

Before the coming of Christianity the people of Ireland practiced a pagan druidic religion which gave them a keen sense of their connection with the natural world. Like many earlier peoples around the world, the winter solstice of 21^st December was particularly important to the Gaelic Irish. The winter solstice is the shortest day / longest night of the year. However for the Celts it marked the turning point in the year. In the dark and cold of winter, at solstice the sun begins the long journey back towards its midsummer peak.

The Celts celebrated the turning point of the sun with fires in sacred places such as the Hill of Tara. The use of fire to mark the winter solstice may have contributed to the more recent Irish tradition of placing a candle in the window of your house during the twelve days of the Christmas season. It is the time of year when the Celts, just like people all across the world want to rekindle the light of love and hope in their lives.

A candle in the window: As well as a throw-back to the ancient Celtic custom of using fire to celebrate the turning point of the year, this tradition is said to be aimed at welcoming travellers to your home. The candle in the window marks the way to warmth and hospitality to anyone who finds themselves, like Mary and Joseph in the New Testament, without a place to stay at Christmas time.

Greenery: The druids of the ancient Celtic world used evergreen to branches to symbolize the eternal nature of the human soul. In Christian times the tradition of bringing evergreen branches into an Irish home has continued, as a symbol of the eternal life brought about by Christ’s resurrection. In Celtic countries evergreen branches such as holly and yew are more traditional than the German custom of bringing an entire tree into the home.

In Irish (Gaelic) Nollaig Shona Duit means Happy Christmas to you. It is pronounced no-leg show-na ditch.

A traditional Irish Christmas blessing in English is: 'May peace and plenty be the first to lift the latch on your door, and happiness be guided to your home by the candle of Christmas.'

At new years it is traditional in Ireland to say 'Go mbeire muid beo ar an am seo arís.'In English - May we be alive at this time next year...

 

©2016 Linda Sullivan-Simpson
The Past Whispers
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Happy Thanksgiving, Canada!

 

The first official, annual Thanksgiving in Canada was celebrated on 6 November 1879, though Indigenous peoples in Canada have a history of celebrating the fall harvest that predates the arrival of European settlers. Sir Martin Frobisher and his crew are credited as the first Europeans to celebrate a Thanksgiving ceremony in North America, in 1578. They were followed by the inhabitants of New France under Samuel de Champlainin 1606.

The celebration featuring the uniquely North American turkey, squash and pumpkin was introduced to Nova Scotia in the 1750s and became more common across Canada by the 1870s. In 1957, Thanksgiving was proclaimed an annual event to occur on the second Monday of October. It is an official statutory holiday in all provinces and territories except PEI, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador.

The first national Thanksgiving in Canada was celebrated in the Province of Canada in 1859. Organized at the behest of leaders of the Protestant clergy — who appropriated the holiday of American Thanksgiving, first observed in 1777 and established as a national day of “public thanksgiving and prayer” in 1789 — the holiday was intended for the “public and solemn” recognition of God’s mercies. As historian Peter Stevens has noted, some citizens “objected to this government request, saying it blurred the distinction between church and state that was so important to many Canadians.”

Thanksgiving is an official statutory holiday in all provinces and territories except PEI, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador. It is called L’Action de Grâce in Québec and is celebrated to a much lesser extent there than in the rest of the country, given the holiday’s Protestant origins and Anglo-nationalist associations. The main differences among the other provinces tend to concern the dishes that are served with the meal. For example, Jiggs’ dinner is often preferred over turkey in Newfoundland. Pumpkin pie is a common dessert nationally, but there are also regional favourites, such as Nanaimo bars in BC, butter tarts in Ontario and cranberry pie in New Brunswick.

 

©2016 Linda Sullivan-Simpson
The Past Whispers
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Remains of shipwrecked Irish famine victims found in Canada

 

The remain of eight humans discovered in Quebec last month are believed to be those of Irish immigrants who died in an 1847 shipwreck off the coast of Canada, Parks Canada revealed.

The bones and skeletons, found in near Cap-des-Rosiers, Quebec, in late July, appear to be those of five adults and three children who were fleeing the Great Hunger in Ireland when their ship got into trouble during a storm.

Although the remains have yet to be analyzed, Parks Canada archaeologist Martin Perron believes the eight bodies could be the remains of some those who died when the Irish ship, The Carricks of Whitehaven, sank during a storm off the Gaspe coast.

If proven to be those of Irish immigrants aboard the 1847 ship, the discovery may be an indicator of a mass grave in the area for the massive fatalities among the 167 passengers. At first discovery, Perron stated that the bones appeared to be very ancient, possibly as old as the 170 years since the ship sank, although further analysis is needed before this is confirmed.

Adding to the evidence that this may be a burial site for The Carricks, the remains of three European children were previously discovered close to this site in 2011. The bones were found on Cap-des-Rosiers beach just a few hundred meters away from July’s grave discovery. The coroner ruled that the three children were the victims of a maritime tragedy and that they had also suffered from malnutrition, a fact that would fall in line with the theory the children were Irish and leaving Ireland because of the famine.

"All these elements point towards a mass grave that is quite ancient, which could be linked to the Carricks shipwreck,'' Perron told CBC Canada.

The Carricks was just one of the Irish ships, often called the “coffin ships,” that transported thousands of Irish people from their suffering island to a new life in the US and Canada. Unfortunately, conditions on many of these ships were deadly and hunger, malnutrition, and disease caused the death of many on the passage and many more when disease spread among immigrants and the local population on landing.

This particular ship is believed to have been traveling to Quebec in 1847, the very worst year of the Great Hunger and often referred to as “Black ‘47.”

Some 100,000 Irish immigrants made the journey to Canada in 1847, descending on the quarantine station in Grose Íle which welcomed the arrival of 14,000 Irish by the summer months alone, despite having just 150 beds. If they escaped the quarantine station, many Irish may have made it to Montreal, where typhus was killing those who survived the journey, while others carried along the river to Toronto.

A fifth of those who traveled that year - 20,000 immigrants - died.

Built in 1812, The Carricks set sail from Sligo, one of the principal points of emigration during the Great Hunger, in March 1847, under the command of Captain R.Thompson, with 167 passengers, most of whom were tenants from the Irish estates of Lord Palmerston. On April 28, she ran into a storm and most of her passengers were lost. It appears that of all those on board, only 48 made it to the shore. Nine had died previously on the voyage while the remaining 119 were lost in the wreckage. All of the crew survived but for one boy.

One Quebec film maker Viveka Melki is currently making a documentary about The Carricks ship and the fate of those poor Irish on board. During the course of her preparation for the documentary, Melki came across an obituary written by a local priest referring to the way in which the shore was strewn with bodies after the shipwreck and that a shallow, hasty mass grave had been dug for the remains along the beach, leading her to believe that this latest discovery must be several of The Carricks victims.

"It's not been easy for us or for the descendants (interviewed) in the film to even suppose that this might be the grave,'' Melki said.

Other documentaries have been made regarding the ship which focuses on the Irish-speaking family, the Kaveneys from Sligo, who five generations later are now the French-speaking Kavanaghs of Gaspé.

The areas around the bodies has now been cordoned off and Park Canada will continue to excavate the site to discover if there are further remains buried nearby.

"There's a way to give a second life to these bodies and make them talk, thanks to the different analyses that can be done,'' Perron said.

A monument already stands to the victims of the shipwreck in Gaspé, which was offered by St. Patrick’s Parish in Montréal in 1900. It is joined by the enshrined ship’s bell, discovered in 1966. The monument’s inscription reads: “Sacred to the memory of 187 Irish Immigrants from Sligo wrecked here on April 28th 1847 (Ship Carricks of Whitehaven 87 are buried here. Pray for their souls.”

 

-courtesy Irish Central

©2016 Linda Sullivan-Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

Old Time Quebec Sugar Pie

 

 

One pie shell (I cheat and don’t make my own. I find the store bought frozen shells quite good enough)
One cup of brown sugar - packed (but not too tightly)
One tablespoon flour
Half a pint of whipping cream minus 2 tablespoons (for the metric inclined folks, that’s exactly 200ml).
 

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
I'll give you the old and the new methods. I use the old method, some use the new one. I swear the old method makes a better pie... but maybe it's just me.
Original method of preparation: dump the sugar and the flour into the pie shell. Mix the flour and sugar with your hands so that the flour is well mixed into the sugar. Dump the cream on top. Mix with your fingers, breaking any sugar clumps until the mix is uniform .
Modern way of doing it: mix the flour and sugar in a bowl. Add the cream and mix thoroughly with a spoon. Dump into pie shell.

Since this is an old-style recipe from the wood stove era, there is no specified amount of time to bake the pie. It will take between 45 and 75 minutes depending on your oven and depending on the ratio of ingredients. A pie with a little more flour than usual will take less time, one where there a bit more cream will take longer. Your baking time will vary from pie to pie.

To check if the pie is fully baked, start checking it at around 45 minutes. The pie filling will start boiling from the outside and move toward the middle. It will first boil with large bubbles which will gradually disappear to be replaced with small tight bubbles. When the entire surface is bubbling with these tight bubbles and the edge of the filling is starting to dry up, the pie is ready. A good test is to shake the pie back and forth a bit. If the center is still liquid, it needs to bake some more. When shaking produces a movement that looks like soft pudding, it’s ready. The pie I baked for this took 65 minutes.

Cool the pie completely to room temperature. The filling stays dangerously hot for a long time. Cool for at least 2-3 hours. Serve at room temperature by itself or with ice cream or whipped cream (for those with a strong liver).

This pie never lasts for very long. It has been known to disappear after a few midnight trips to the kitchen.

 

©2016 Linda Sullivan-Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

Saint-Henri

 

Saint-Henri 1859

Saint-Henri is well known as a historically French-Canadian, Irish and black working class neighbourhood. Often contrasted with wealthy Westmount looking down over the Falaise Saint-Jacques, in recent years it has been strongly affected by gentrification.

The area—historically known as Les Tanneries because of the artisans' shops where leather tanning took place—was named for St. Henry via the Église Saint-Henri, which at one time formed Place Saint-Henri along with the community's fire and police station. The bustle of a nearby passenger rail station was immortalized in the song "Place St. Henri" (1964) by Oscar Peterson.

Saint-Henri is part of the municipal district of Saint-Henri–Petite-Bourgogne–Pointe-Saint-Charles. The borough hall for Le Sud-Ouest is located in a converted factory in Saint-Henri, bearing witness to the borough's industrial heritage.

Église Saint-Henri was so named to commemorate Fr. Henri-Auguste Roux (1798–1831), the superior of Saint-Sulpice Seminary. The municipality of Saint-Henri was formed in 1875, joining the village of Saint-Henri and the surrounding settlements of Turcot, Brodie, Saint-Agustin and Sainte-Marguerite into one administrative unit. The municipality was incorporated into the City of Montreal in 1905.

Well-known people from Saint-Henri include strongman Louis Cyr, who served as a police officer there; the Place des Hommes-Forts and the Parc Louis-Cyr are named for him. Celebrated jazz pianist Oscar Peterson grew up in Little Burgundy which is the neighborhood adjacent to Saint-Henri. Stand-up comedian Yvon Deschamps has described the daily struggle of Saint-Henri's citizens with humorous melancholy.

Saint-Henri and Little Burgundy are considered to have a fairly common social makeup. Historically, Saint-Henri was occupied predominantly by European blue-collar workers while Little Burgundy was occupied primarily by African-Canadians who worked on the railroads. – courtesy Wikipedia

Two of my grand aunts lived in Saint-Henri. Evelina (Bernard) Mailhot and her husband Anatole lived near the train because Anatole was an engineer. Anita (Bernard) Blanchette and her husband Joseph lived for a time in Saint-Henri as they had a shop before moving to Verdun.

 

©2016 Linda Sullivan-Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

 

Stanford Friends and Family Letter Project

 

By VJ PERIYAKOIL, M.D.SEPT. 7, 2016

Over the last 15 years, as a geriatrics and palliative care doctor, I have had candid conversations with countless patients near the end of their lives. The most common emotion they express is regret: regret that they never took the time to mend broken friendships and relationships; regret that they never told their friends and family how much they care; regret that they are going to be remembered by their children as hypercritical mothers or exacting, authoritarian fathers.

And that’s why I came up with a project to encourage people to write a last letter to their loved ones. It can be done when someone is ill, but it’s really worth doing when one is still healthy, before it’s too late.

It’s a lesson I learned years ago from a memorable dying patient. He was a Marine combat veteran who had lived on a staple diet of Semper Fi and studied silence all his life. A proud and stoic man, he was admitted to the hospital for intractable pain from widely spread cancer. Every day, his wife visited him and spent many hours at his bedside watching him watch television. She explained to me that he had never been much of a talker in their 50-plus years of marriage.

But he was far more forthcoming with me, especially when it became clear that his days were numbered. He spoke of his deep regret for not having spent enough time with his wife, whom he loved very much, and of his great pride in his son, who had joined the Marines in his father’s footsteps.

One afternoon, when I mentioned these comments to his wife and son, they looked incredulously at each other and then disbelievingly at me. They thanked me for being kind but stated that my patient was incapable of expressing such sentiments.

Continue reading the main story…

 

Stanford Friends and Family Letter Project

 

©2016 Linda Sullivan-Simpson
The Past Whispers
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They Were So Young: Montrealers Remembering WWII

These gripping stories of young men and women who served in the army, navy, and air force during World War II are a testament to the raw courage, youthful bravado, camaraderie, and sacrifice needed to defeat a powerful enemy. Many who returned from the theatre of war were never the same again. Moving accounts by family members relate the impact the war had on their lives - the pain of losing a son, father, brother, or husband, and the welcoming of war brides into the family.

This is history that must never be forgotten.


©2016 Linda Sullivan-Simpson
The Past Whispers
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Quebec’s Secret Meat Pie – Cipaille

 

BRYSON, Que. — Ivan Saunders stood in the kitchen at the Lions Club, filling a metal bowl — a particular metal bowl, so big you could bathe a dog in it — with cups of flour and bricks of lard. He started to spoon in baking soda, then paused, nodding at one of the dozen other cooks.

“Would you —”

The cook walked to the kitchen’s electric panel, opened it and squinted at the faded label stuck to the inside of the panel door. Then he barked out the number of tablespoons of baking soda required and Saunders, 80, went back to mixing, spraying flecks of lard and flour onto his shirt.

Decades earlier, an old man who cooked at the logging camps in northern Quebec saw Saunders struggling with the dough and passed on his recipe. Ivan used a blue pen to scratch a few numbers and letters on the electrical panel as a reminder — more a code than a recipe. Those numbers have served ever since as the only written instructions guiding this contingent of amateur cooks in their summer ritual. They guard it carefully, always cognizant of their rivals in neighbouring towns.

Here, in Bryson, Que., a village of 647 people, west of the Gatineau Hills along the Ottawa River, the long weekend in August is reserved for the picnic. It is a festival with one purpose: to honour an extraordinary, endangered meat pie.

- See more at: http://news.nationalpost.com/features/inside-a-quebec-summer-ritual-devoted-entirely-to-cipaille-an-obscure-meat-pie-with-mysterious-origins#sthash.2pAiBCuy.dpuf

 

Enjoy!

 

©2016 Linda Sullivan-Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

Maple Stars and Stripes

I'm a French-Canadian residing in the United States, I no longer speak French because after coming to the States I wanted to fit in, I didn't want to speak French any longer. Was that a positive decision, probably not, but for a little girl going to school in rural Indiana it made perfect sense. I never regretted my decision to only speak 'American' until I started researching my family tree, half of my tree is French-Canadian and I don't speak or read the language. Oh my!

Actually with a lot of research and help from my French speaking Mother I've done very well, but sometimes wondered if there were other like me, researching French-Canadian ancestors from the United States.

I'm an avid researcher, and one day I stumbled upon Maple Stars and Stripes Your French-Canadian Genealogy Podcast, I was hooked! Authored by Sandra Goodwin, her podcasts took the mystery out of much of my French-Canadian genealogy. The first podcast I listened to was 'The Dreaded 'dit' Name',  Sandra's second podcast, I've not missed a podcast since.

If you want to understand more of your French-Canadian ancestry please have a listen to Sandra Goodwin's Maple Stars and Stripes.


(c)2016 Linda Sullivan-Simpson
The Past Whispers
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Griffontown Remembered

HAPPY FURLONG'S LIFE was saved by a quart of beer. When the elderly carriage driver left his rooming house at the corner of Shannon and Ottawa streets in Montreal's Griffintown shortly after 10 a.m., to buy his favourite ale at the local corner store, he had no idea that an RAF Liberator was about to take off from a supply base in Dorval.

That 25-ton bomber, on a classified mission to Europe on that drizzly spring morning of April 25, 1944, would develop engine trouble as it approached Mount Royal. My uncle, Frank Doyle, then an 11-year-old student in St. Ann's Boys' School, a block from Furlong's flat, remembers how the plane swooped over the school as the pilot made a desperate attempt to reach the river. "We were just coming in after recess," he says. "We heard this big noise, zoom, it shook the place. Brother Edward, our teacher, said, 'Stay here and pray.' " God saved the schoolchildren. The plane missed the school and crashed into the block where Furlong lived. Nine of his neighbours, a beat constable, and the plane's five crew members died.

So the luck of the Irish goes only so far. The plane crash is the worst of many calamities to hit Griffintown. The storied neighbourhood - home to Irish immigrants who fled the potato famines in the 1800s and to several generations of their descendants - has endured floods, fires, riots and strikes. It's a colourful past that has won Griffintown a small, if unhappy, place in the literary imagination…more

Windmill Point

Windmill Point was a quarantine area where between 3,500 and 6,000 Irish immigrants died of typhus or "ship fever" in 1847 and 1848. The immigrants had been transferred from quarantine in Grosse Isle, Quebec.

Due to a lack of suitable preparations, typhus soon reached epidemic proportions in Montreal. Three fever sheds were initially constructed, 150 feet (46 m) long by 40 to 50 feet (15 m) wide. As thousands more sick immigrants landed, more sheds had to be erected.

The number of sheds would grow to 22, with troops cordoning off the area so the sick couldn't escape. Grey Nuns cared for the sick, carrying women and children in their arms from ships to the ambulances.

According to Montreal journalist and historian Edgar Andrew Collard, thirty of 40 nuns who went to help became ill, with seven dying. Other nuns took over, but once the surviving Grey Nuns had convalesced, they returned. Priests also helped, many falling ill after hearing the last confessions of the dying.

When a mob threatened to throw the fever sheds into the river, Montreal mayor John Easton Mills quelled the riot and provided care, giving patients water and changing bedding. He died in November, having served less than a year in office. 


The Roman Catholic Bishop of Montreal urged French Quebecers to help their fellow Catholics. Many travelled to Montreal from the countryside to adopt children, in some cases passing their land on to them.

During the mid-19th century, workers constructing the Victoria Bridge across the St. Lawrence River discovered a mass grave in Windmill Pointwhere victims of typhus epidemic of 1847 had been quarantined in fever sheds. The workers, many of whom were of Irish descent, were unsettled by the discovery and wanted to create a memorial to ensure the grave, which held the coffins of 6,000 Irish immigrants, would not be forgotten.

Erected on December 1, 1859, the stone was the first Canadian monument to represent the famine. The inscription on the stone reads:

"To Preserve from Desecration the Remains of 6000 Immigrants Who died of Ship Fever A.D. 1847-48
This Stone is erected by the Workmen of Messrs. Peto, Brassey and Betts Employed in the Construction of the Victoria Bridge A.D. 1859"

 



©2016 Linda Sullivan-Simpson

ET Corsets Saint Hyacinthe 1892 - 2015

The days are numbered for the building that once housed the Eastern Township Corset, located at the corner of Laframboise and Delorme streets in the Sacred Heart area of Saint-Hyacinthe.

The demolition of the building which was established in 1892 would be a loss to the industrial heritage of Saint-Hyacinthe as it is the oldest industrial relic still standing in the city.

Developers want to demolish this building in order to build a new one, so much for the sense of belonging to our city and its heritage. Instead, why not give it a restoration and claim the charm of yesterday year for generations to come.

Industrialization appeared in Saint-Hyacinthe in the last decades of the nineteenth century, the promoters set up their factories near the Yamaska River to use the driving force of the water. It was the first industrial park in Saint-Hyacinthe.

The second Maskoutan industrial pole was installed near the station and the railway to be able to facilitate the carriage of manufacturing. Thus, at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the city has a policy to encourage the establishment of factories near the railway. The textile industry has long been the trademark of our community with its many factories and school on Laframboise street.

c.1909

The Guide to Saint-Hyacinthe from 1894 tells us more about the Eastern Township Corset Co. This company was founded in 1880 by O. Gendron in Sherbrooke. In 1892, then moved to Saint-Hyacinthe. The owners then erected "the largest factory Dominion corsets. "Importantly, the City of Saint-Hyacinthe gave a" bonus "to  plants that moved here. At that time, the Corset employs between 175 and 200 employees.

In 1909 the activity of the corset company makes changes to the neighborhood. Indeed, Mr. J N Dubrule, CEO of the company Eastern Townships Mfg.Co. sends a request to the City of Saint-Hyacinthe April 23, 1909 on the public opening of the Delorme Street located on the property of Georges Casimir Dessaulles.

"At his Worship the Mayor and gentlemen Aldermen of the City of Saint-Hyacinthe.

Gentlemen,

Whereas our employees responsible for "carting" of our own materials to manufacture, have been denied by the employee of the Honourable Mr. Dessaulles, the transition path between the Laframboise and rue Ste Anne, the latter claiming that this path was private and, in addition, as we know that at this place, a street named Delorme was verbalized, so please make your kindly Council open this street immediately in order to avoid us trouble. "

In 1948, nearly 125 people specializing in women's clothing lingerie worked at this plant, which was closed in 1979.

Hundreds of men and women have worked in the sweat of brow to improve their lot. They left their mark in this building.

My three eldest paternal grand-aunts, Adrienna, Evelina, and Amelia worked at ET Corsets while still living at home in Saint-Hyacinthe.

(c)2016 Linda Sullivan-Simpson