Well technically, she was four days short of her 103rd birthday, but it seems only fair to round up. Alice Plante Maillet was a first cousin to my Grandma, Lucie Plante Vayo. Alice was one of 15 children born to Jean Baptiste and Rose Anne Plante. That’s right: 15. And here they all are: Did a thousand questions just rush into your brain? Sure, times were different when Alice was born in Lewiston, Maine, in 1899. But still, how did…
Admittedly, my approach to genealogy is scattershot. Whether it’s an interesting photo, one of Mom’s poems, or a geographic location, when something interesting catches my eye, that’s the rabbit hole we scamper down for hours and sometimes days. And then there are the overriding questions about our ancestors’ origins. Case in point: How far back on Dad‘s side of the family must we go to find ourselves in France? We know they came to Maine by way of Canada several…
It was close to midnight the other evening when I heard it. A train whistle. In the far-off distance. I love the sound of a train, especially at night. It’s so comforting. I asked my musical brother Dave if he knew exactly what chord the whistle plays. Here’s his reply: I’ve heard a lot of different chords from train whistles, but my favorite (which I’ve heard quite a bit) is a major chord with an added 6th, like F-A-C-D. The add-6 chord…
The prayer card handed out at Rose Anna Gilbert Plante’s funeral was in French. Even though she lived all but 14 years of her long life in Lewiston, Maine, Rose Anna still listed French as her spoken language on the census form every ten years. “A la douce memoire de …” means “To the sweet memory of …” Rose Anna lived to be 87. She outlived her “epouse,” Jean Vincent Plante by 29 years. (Jean was a brother to my…
Although worthwhile, researching a family tree is overwhelming. Each generation of ancestors spreads those branches further, to Ireland, Germany, France, Canada. Which limb to explore next? Let’s look to the north and remember Achille and Jane Plante. Here they are on their wedding day in 1901. Both born in Canada, the shoemaker and his bride were 27 and 25 years old. They’d immigrated to the U.S. a few years earlier. Here’s the fancy Certificate of Marriage they received a month…