January 4, 2019: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challange

My Family History

January 4, 2019 Start of 52 Ancestors in 52-week Challenge Week 1  

Ok, I have been researching my family history for about 10 years now.  I have made some amazing discoveries, proved and disproved some family myths, and have tried to get documentation for all my finds.  My family is amazing.  No, we are not related to Elvis, George Washington, Kings or Queens.  There are no famous actors, writers, performers, or political figures I can call my own.  Just hardworking, families that were born, got married, had children, and died.  Sounds boring, but it really isn’t.  Their everyday lives help form nations, fought for their homelands, and forged a bond that reached down to present generations.  I feed a kinship to the great, many times removed, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

My closest relationships are to the intrepid French, who journeyed to New France (Canada) in the early 1600’s.  They faced the gales of the Atlantic in small sailing ships, the hardships of the harsh land they tried to tame, hostile indigenous people who didn’t want these invaders in their lands, and sickness, famine, loneliness, and a lack of all the comforts they had formerly known.  Many came as soldiers, trappers, and woodsmen. Then the women followed as Filles de Roi, or basically mail-order brides.  They were sponsored by King Louis of France, to help populate the new territory and to keep the men from forming families with the indigenous people, which many did anyway.  These unions were not always sanctioned by the Church, and many were not recorded. The only grandparent I was lucky enough to know, was my French-Canadian grandmother Lena Rivard Wickenheiser.  I will start with her. Perhaps that is why the research into the French is much more satisfying. That, and the fact that the Church kept excellent records.

Eliza Paulina Rivard was born on January 10, 1893 into a boisterous, loving family.  The daughter of Rose Anne Leduc and Edouard Rivard, who farmed a 70-acre spot in Oldport, MI. The family spoke French in the home, and even as an elderly woman, Lena could sing the French songs, and recite the little ditty’s she learned from her parents.  They were a farming family, and Lena learned hard work by her mother’s side.  The family was fervently Catholic, and her faith remained strong throughout her life. While she had an enjoyable childhood for the most part, her happiness was marred by the death of a young brother Joe.

All of us grandkids used to spend the night with Grandma. Sometimes there were two or three of us, sometimes only one.  One night she shared this story with me.  There was a terrible diphtheria epidemic, and the house was quarantined. Her brother Joe was very, very sick, and died of the disease. They were not allowed to leave the house for the burial, and his little body was placed outside for others to carry him away.  I suppose his things must have been burned, for she said they didn’t have anything as a remembrance of him.  She said she snipped a piece of cloth from his coat and hid it away, secretly keeping a token of his life.  Years later, she wanted to buy a marker for his grave, but no one could locate it.  There didn’t seem to be any record of young Joseph Rivard.  She was very hurt that no one believed her story of this brother, and I can hear the pain in her voice even today.  She said, “I saved a piece of his coat,” but she couldn’t find it.  Three years after her death, my own mother died.  I was sorting though some of her things and came upon a small tin box of Grandmas. A few trinkets, some army air corps and navy insignia, a ring.  There was an especially touching yellowed envelope carefully and lovingly labeled “Clara’s braids,” containing two small blond braids.  And a piece of tattered cloth labeled “Joe’s coat.”

 When Lena was a young woman, she met a local young man named Gus Wickenheiser.  When Gus went to her father to ask for her hand, Pere Rivard said “You both are too young, come back in a year.”  One year later Gus showed up in his fancy buggy with the fastest horse in Carleton, MI, and presented Lena with a ruby lavaliere (necklace). Unfortunately, before the marriage took place, Lena lost a second brother, Eli, who died from peritonitis from a burst appendix.  The loss of her brothers was a lifelong sorrow for her but didn’t cost her the sunny nature and fun-loving personality that all who knew her saw.  She embodied the truth of God, Family, Church above all else.  Recently I found a paper written by one of her daughters, dictated by Lena that spoke of her early years with Gus.