Due to March being Women's History Month and my participation in the Burbank-based French-Canadian Heritage Society of California's (FCHSC) meeting today at the Southern California Genealogical Society (SCGS) Library ... one particular 2nd great grandmother is on my mind. She is proving to be elusive.
Her first name is Flore or Flora as confirmed by both family lore and US Census entries (i.e., 1900, 1910, 1920). She was born in August of 1854 or 1855 somewhere in French Canada but came to the US circa 1870. She then married Antoine Gamache in 1871 in Oconto, Oconto, Wisconsin. The couple later moved to Escanaba, Delta County, Michigan and that is where Flore died in 1923.
Some time ago, I requested a copy of her marriage certificate from the Wisconsin Historical Society with the hopes of learning the names of her parents. Unfortunately, when the copy of the marriage record arrived - her father's name (Jean Courtois) was listed, but her mother's name was not. In addition, the name of the bride on the copy looked more like "Clare Wartoiz".
It was with these facts that I approached the expert French-Canadian researchers for assistance.
I learned about the comprehensive French-Canadian collection on-hand at the SCGS Library - from the Loiselle Marriage Index microfiche to dictionaries of dit names to historical sketches of Quebec's famous families in the mid-1600s. I also learned that the FCHSC maintains a database of about 35,000 French-Canadian related ancestral names, relationships, vitals, and King's daughters and Carignan Soldiers annotations.
With many sources to pursue, I look forward to my next visit to the SCGS library. With the aid of the French-Canadian Research Team, I am confident that the mystery of Flore will one day be solved.
A Maternal Mystery Sunday, March 21, 2010
A trip to Yosemite in Winter Sunday, January 3, 2010
This 2009 holiday season, we traveled to Yosemite National Park for a couple of days. We stayed with friends in Coarsegold, CA (just south of the Park's South Entrance).
There was snow in the Park, but the roads were clear. The waterfalls were spectacular as was Half Dome, decorated with snow. We got our puppy fix as we got to play with Mr. 
An important history lesson!
I received this via email and thought it was important to post!
2009 was the 80th Anniversary of the Persons Case in Canada.“Knowledge is Freedom: hide it, and it withers; share it, and it blooms” (P. Hill)
The result was that women were finally declared to be persons in Canada!
This is the story of women who were ground-breakers. These brave women from the early 1900s made all the difference in the lives we live today.
Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote
. (graphic 1)The women were innocent and defenseless, but when, in North America, women picketed in front of the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote, they were jailed.
(graphic 2)By the end of the first night in jail, those women were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'
(Lucy Burns)
They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.
(Dora Lewis)
They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women. (graphic 3: Dora Lewis)
Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach the suffragists a lesson imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.
For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.
(Alice Paul)
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press. (graphic 4: Alice Paul)
All women who have every voted, have ever owned property, have ever enjoyed equal rights need to remember that women’s rights had to be fought for in Canada as well.
Do our daughters and our sisters know the price that was paid to earn rights for women here, in North America?
Get the scoop - read on!
Immigrant Ehretsmanns' Grave Sites Sunday, November 29, 2009
John and Barbara Ehretsmann came to the US from France. Through the Find-a-Grave website, I was able to locate photos of their headstones at Lantz-Shurr-Fehrman Cemetery in Indiana.
The information that Tina (the Find-a-Grave author) sites is public info from US census records and matches the info I have from family records as well. Here are the links to the two Find-a-Grave website entries: for John Ehretsmann; for Barbara Ehretsmann.
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