As I was writing about the Dumonts, I wondered what became of them - did they have more children? – did they stay in the U.S. as the Catudals and so many other migrant French and Irish Canadians had done? I briefly entertained the idea of trying to find their descendants, but ultimately decided against it. Imagine my surprise when, one day, I received an e-mail message from Joanne (Barbeau) Caselli, a great-granddaughter of Auguste and Agnes Dumont! Joanne’s family had known that Auguste and Agnes had a child named Blanche who had died in infancy, but they had not been able to learn the cause of death. I had found the birth and death records for Blanche on FamilySearch.org and included the information in my first blog post. Joanne had also been researching the O’Brien family and had come to an impasse. As Joanne shared with me the story of Agnes and Auguste and I helped her find some records on the O’Briens, the narrative of “what happened to the Dumonts,” unfolded. It is the story of a family that endured more than its share of tragedy and loss.
Auguste Dumont worked as a house painter and was boarding with the Bouchard family at 13 Grant Street in North Attleboro before he and Agathonique (Agnes) O’Brien were married in North Attleboro on 12 October 1903. In addition to Blanche, Marguerite and Leonia, they had three sons, Maurice, born in 1910 (while they were still living with the Catudals), Marcel, born in 1914 and François born in 1916. Leonia, left paralyzed after contracting polio at about the age of three, remained unmarried until her death in 1985. Sadly, Agnes and Auguste lost three of their children in 1927. On 9 January, Maurice, age16 and Jean Marcel, age 12, were killed in the Montreal Laurier Palace Theatre fire. Later that year, Marguerite died of typhoid fever on August 18, a little over a month after giving birth to her second son, Marcel, whom she had named after her recently deceased brother. Marguerite was only 21.
Marguerite Dumont Barbeau
(15 April 1906-18 August 1927)
Marguerite had married Edmour Barbeau in 1925 and they had two children, Victor (Joanne’s father) and Marcel. Joanne writes, “Edmour remarried so my dad had nine half-siblings; however Edmour died when he was only 12. His step-mother was a wonderful woman who raised the boys as her own. My father was very close to his maternal grandparents.” Auguste Dumont died suddenly at home on 10 December 1945. After Agnes died on 2 November 1956, their youngest son, François and his family inherited Agnes and Auguste’s house and took care of Leonia.
Unlike the Catudals, the Dumonts returned home to Canada and remained there. Joanne’s parents, Victor Barbeau and Marguerite Turcotte were married in 1951 and they immigrated to Michigan from Montreal in 1957 with their children. Victor still resides in Michigan. Joanne lives in California with her husband and has three grown children; a son and twin daughters.
Twin sisters Agnes and Fortunate O’Brien with Agnes’ grandson, Victor Barbeau, July 6, 1947
Auguste Dumont (date unknown)
(If anyone can identify the uniform he is wearing, please contact me)
Tracing the O’Briens
Joanne had given me the names of Agnes O’Brien’s parents: François Xavier O’Brien (b. ca. 1827) and Marie Louise Trémouillé (1 April 1849- 2 February 1930). I first found them on the 1861 Canadian census, but with a slight surprise. François was married to someone else and Marie Louise was their 12-year-old servant! All members of the household were listed as having been born in Canada. The 1861 Canada Census, L’Assomption, Repentigny lists:
François X. O’Brien, age 37
Zoé Mercier, age 27
Clément F.S. O’Brien, age 3
Pierre H. O’Brien, age 1
Louise Trémouillé, servant, age 12
François O’Brien and Zoé Mercier were married 26 November 1857, in Repentigny, L’Assomption, Quebec. Based on the dates on burial records, it appears that the twenty-nine year old Zoé Mercier O’Brien died in childbirth on 1 December 1863. Her infant daughter, Marie Zoé, died eighteen days later. After six years as a widower, François was remarried to Marie Louise Trémouillé (12 September 1869), who, as we know from the 1861 census, had been a servant in the O’Briens’ household. Their marriage record gives no information about Louise’s parents, which is unusual. Joanne is to be commended for finding François and Marie Louise’s marriage record. I couldn’t find it myself, so I asked her how she had searched. She said, “When Tremoullee appeared on census and birth records the “r” sometimes looked like an “e” so I searched for Teamoulle and after about 4 or 5 pages there it was with Francis Obrian.” Good work, Joanne!
By time of the 1881 Census, only one of Zoé’s children, Roch, born 29 April 1862, is listed as a member of the household. In 1878, when he was nineteen years old, Clément had drowned in the St. Laurent River. The 1881 Canada Census, L’Assomption, Repentigny lists:
François O’Brien, age 54
Louise O’Brien, age 30
Roch O’Brien, age 19
Zénon O’Brien, age 11
Cyriarque O’Brien, age 6
Rose Blanche O’Brien, age 5
Agathonique O’Brien, age 3 (twin)
Fortunate O’Brien, age 3 (twin)
Marie O’Brien age 10/12 (10 months)
The 1891 census lists one additional child. Roch has moved out and was living on his own by this time.
François, age 67
Marie Louise, age 42
Zénon, age 21
Cyriac, age 17
Rose Blanche, age 15
Agathonique, age 13
Fortunate, age 13
Marie, age 10
Véronique, age 7
A transcribed entry (original record unavailable) on ancestry.com from Lovell’s Business Directory of the Province of Quebec 1890-91 listed F.X. O’Brien as Postmaster in L’Assomption, Repentigny. His occupation on the census records is consistently listed as Notaire (Notary). A Notaire registered contracts, such as wills, deeds and marriage contracts. More information can be found here: https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Quebec_Notarial_Records.
I was able to trace the lineage of François Xavier O’Brien a few generations back through marriage records I found on ancestry.com.
Parents of François Xavier O’Brien:
Marie Josephète Paré and François O’Brien, married 8 May 1810, St-Sulpice, Quebec
Parents of François O’Brien:
Michel O’Bryain and Marie Françoise Lamotte, married 7 January 1765 in Beauport, Quebec.
Parents of Michel O’Bryain
Guillaume Bryaine and Marguerite Tool (from the parish of St. Francis in Dublin).
Parents of Marie Françoise Lamotte:
Louis Lamotte (1699-1743) and Marie-Charlotte Alard (b. 1704)
Note: In the process of looking for more information on Louis Lamotte and Marie-Charlotte Alard, I discovered that the Tanguay Dictionnaire généalogique des familles canadiennes depuis la fondation de la colonie is available on Google Books (searchable, of course), and found them listed there, on p. 117. I also found at least two postings on rootsweb.com listing Guillaume Bryiane (O’Brien) and Marguerite O’Toole by performing a Google search on Guilliame Bryiane.
I was surprised to find the name O’Brien among the French-Canadian records, since I had read about tension between Irish and French Canadians, especially in the context of fair labor practices in the New England textile mills (Irish workers demanded higher wages, went out on strike, and were replaced by French workers who were willing to work for the lower wage). In North Attleboro, at least, Irish and French attended separate churches; St. Mary was Irish and Sacred Heart, French. Language was also a barrier to cross-cultural relations, and since Irish Canadians spoke English, they had an easier time fitting into American culture.
Although the O’Briens are ethnically identified as Irish on the census records, François X. O’Brien’s mother and grandmother were French. Furthermore, he had married and borne children with two wives who were French (as far as we know). They were living in a French speaking region and spoke French, so it appears that they had adopted the French-Canadian culture. In the census records, all members of the family are listed as “Irlandais” (Irish), and Joanne noticed that François himself is the census taker in 1891, so we know that he was the one who identified the family as Irish rather than French. Auguste and Agnes both identified themselves as French-Canadians on the 1910 North Attleboro census, and the census also indicates that they and the Catudals spoke English. Joanne says that the Dumonts spoke French at home, but could also speak English quite well. I have not made an exhaustive search for research conducted on intermarriage of Irish and French Canadians in the 18th through early 20th centuries, but the cursory search I performed produced few results. I suspect that it would be difficult and time consuming to identify Canadians of Irish descent who acquired French surnames, either through marriage or by Frenchifying their Irish names. If any readers out there are specialists on the topic and can recommend some resources, please send an e-mail.
The Family of François Xavier O’Brien
François Xavier O’Brien (16 August 1826 - 24 January 1901) married Zoé Mercier O’Brien (3 April 1834 -30 November 1863) on 26 November 1857 in L’Assomption, Repentigny. He was widowed and remarried Marie Louise Trémouillé (1 April 1849- 2 February 1930) on 12 September 1869, also in L’Assomption, Repentigny.
Children of François Xavier O’Brien and Zoé Mercier:
Clément François.Smith O’Brien (1858 -1878)
Pierre H. O’Brien (1860-1872)
Roch O’Brien (b. 1862) Engineer
Marie Zoé O’Brien (1863-1863)
Children of François Xavier O’Brien and Marie Louise Trémouillé:
Zénon O’Brien (1870-1931) Toolmaker. Married Evelina Gendron (1884-1965) on 13 September 1905 in Central Falls, Rhode Island.
Cyriaque O’Brien (1874-1946) Physician – lived in Massachusetts
Rose Blanche O’Brien (b. 1876)
Agathonique (Agnes) O’Brien (1878-1956) Married Auguste Dumont (1872-1945) on 12 October1903 in North Attleboro, MA.
Fortunate O’Brien (b. 1878) Married Joseph Godin (b.1871) on 11 January 1904 in Providence, Rhode Island.
Marie O’Brien (b. 1880) Married Omer Juneau (b. 1877).
Véronique O’Brien (1884-1931) Married Paul Alfred J. Degroseilliers (b. 1886) on 27 December 1911 in Lowell, Massachusetts.
