It's Week 4 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. This week's theme is Curious. Not too long ago, I was thinking about how my grandparents, Phil and Connie (Meloche) LaViolet met, so I could finally get it down on paper. It’s a story everyone in the family knows well because my grandparents loved to tell it, and it’s unforgettable. Their story begins at a funeral of a mutual relative in Montreal….
And when I tell this story, this is the point when dawning horror spreads over the listener’s face, and they say something like, “Wait...they’re not related are they?” and I respond with a grin, “They’re second cousins. I'm my own fourth cousin!” because it’s satisfying to shock people, and truthfully, being my own fourth cousin only makes me a tiny bit inbred. There’s nothing wrong with me – I’m a normal, average person (my husband might disagree, and in fact, if he’s reading this, I’m sure he’s laughing). It's not like I have six toes or a tail or anything.
Historically speaking, cousin marriages aren’t that unusual, and only become problematic if generation after generation of cousins intermarry. Just about anyone who traces their roots back to North America in the 1600s or 1700s will find at least one cousin or distant cousin marriage simply because options were limited. As second cousins, my grandparents shared a set of great-grandparents, which means instead of 16 unique great-great-grandparents, my mom and her siblings have 14. Instead of 32 unique great-great-great grandparents, my cousins and I have 30. My grandparents’ common ancestors were Lazare Laviolette Sr. and Emilie Simard. Grampy Phil’s father, William Laviolette, and Nana Connie’s mother, Laura Laviolette, were first cousins. They grew up in Westbrook, Maine, and considering they were only a year apart, they likely attended school together, and they grew up on the same street (Walker St.) they probably knew each other fairly well. Their fathers, Adam and Lazare Jr., were brothers. When Laura was about fourteen, Lazare moved his family back to Canada. Grampy Phil always said the reason Lazare’s family moved back to Canada was because first cousins, Laura and William, were becoming too close and the families were afraid they would marry, but when pressed if that was true, he would back-peddle and say it was just a theory he had. I don’t believe it’s true. Based on census records and birth records of his children, Lazare Jr. seemed to go where he could find work, and hopped around from place to place. In fact, when the family moved back to Canada, one of his other daughters married a first cousin from the St. Andre side of the family (Lazare's wife's side of the family). I find it doubtful they would move to another country to discourage one cousin marriage only to allow another.
So as the story goes, my grandparents met at the funeral of a mutual relative. My grandfather had returned from the war a year earlier, where he was stationed in Okinawa and saw some horrific things. My adorable grandmother was a tiny woman with a larger-than-life personality. She must have been a breath of fresh air to my war-weary grandfather. From what they claimed, it was love at first sight. After meeting at the funeral, they exchanged letters, and then visited each other three times. My Nana Connie loved telling the story of her first trip to visit my grandfather in Westbrook and her reaction to seeing a lobster for the very first time. The poor city girl was horrified when presented with “a big, ugly, red bug” on her plate. The third visit included a marriage proposal. The fourth time they saw each other after meeting at the funeral was their wedding. They married in Montreal, settled in Westbrook, raised five children together, and had a long, happy marriage.
When I sat down and tried to write out their "meet cute" funeral story, I wanted to add as many details as possible. Although I had heard the story a dozen or more times, it occurred to me that they left out an important detail. If they met at a funeral of a mutual relative, obviously somebody died. Who was this person, and how were they related to my grandparents? I was curious, and needed to find out.
There is nothing I love more than uncovering a genealogical mystery! It makes me feel like a detective, and as good detectives do, I began by constructing a timeline. I needed actual dates of my grandparents’ courtship so I could compare those against known death dates of the extended Laviolette family. Fortunately, my grandfather was an avid genealogist, and I inherited his many binders full of research, documents, notes, and pictures. He labeled all of his pictures – usually on top of them in ink – so creating a timeline of their visits to one another was easy. Pictures from their first date were taken in August of 1948 in Canada at my grandmother’s camp. Other pictures showed Nana’s first trip to Maine in November of 1948. My grandfather proposed in a cemetery on Christmas or Christmas Eve of 1948 (I assume this was the local make-out spot, and not in keeping with the meeting-at-a-funeral theme). I still wasn’t sure when they met though. It could have been 1948, but it could have been earlier. I looked through the photos again to see if there was anything I missed, which is easy with my grandfather’s binders. Tucked behind a picture of their first date, I found what I was looking for -- a letter written from Connie to Phil in September of 1947, and bless my grandfather’s heart, he labeled it “1st letter from Connie after meeting her at the funeral home.” They met prior to September of 1947. The letter mentions Phil’s sister, Diane, going back to school, which means they met during or shortly before the summer of 1947. It’s quite possible, and I’d say even likely, that Connie’s first letter to Phil was not the first letter sent; given social conventions at the time and their strong Catholic upbringing, my grandfather probably wrote to her first.
Once I had my timeline, I looked at the Laviolette branch. I assumed the deceased was most likely a grandaunt or granduncle -- the child of their common ancestor, Lazare Laviolette Sr. Lazare Laviolette was a prolific French-Catholic and had a total of 20 children – 6 with his first wife, and 14 with his second wife and my ancestor, Emilie Simard. I scanned the list of names and death dates and there he was: Zoel Laviolette, Phil’s and Connie’s granduncle, full brother to Phil’s grandfather, Adam, and Connie’s grandfather, Lazare Jr. He passed away on June 9, 1947. My great-grandfather, William (Phil’s father) had enough of a relationship with Zoel to traveled to Canada in 1938 with his children to attend his 50th wedding anniversary. It seems likely he would also attend his funeral. The binders don't show pictures of any of the other grandaunts or granduncles with William or Phil.
Zoel had a large family of his own, including many nieces and nephews who lived more locally than William, yet he managed to maintain some type of contact with his nephew in America, long after his brother passed away. To put in any sort of effort when William was one of many relatives tells me that Zoel was a person who cared deeply about his family. I’d like to imagine that two family-oriented people like my grandparents meeting at his funeral and later marrying would have brought him joy. Details make the difference when crafting a family history narrative, and I’m happy that I'm able to add their granduncle Zoel's name to their story.
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