My Journey Into My Past

THOUGHTS ON THE SPANISH FLU   1918 was known to me as momentous, in that it was the year my mother was born.   Other that that, it had only one other significant factor, and that being that the Armistice was signed on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918 ending The Great War.   Then, in 2004, I took my niece Donna BRUCK and my children on a road trip to Niagara Falls.   I had admonished my middle school children that anything we did had to be Falls related.   Therefore, no Ripley Believe it or Not Museum or any other attractions that were not related (or free). It was a great trip with many things to do and see, and on our way home we took a side trip to a town we had heard about called Niagara on the Lake.   We simply went there because Niagara was in the name. Such chance decisions often lead to adventures beyond anything we could have expected. We happened to arrive on a Festival day.   We were told that the ci...

  Urbain Tessier dit Lavigne , born 24 February 1624 in Chateau, Anjou France, was the son of Artus Tessier and Jeanne Meine .   He was one of the original 70 Frenchmen who established a post in New France (Quebec) in 1641.   He was a soldier, pit sawyer, carpenter, farmer, and Indian fighter.   He married Marie Archambault on 28 September, 1648. Marie was baptized on 24 February 1636 at Dumpierre-sur-Mer, in Aunis France, daughter of Jacques Archambault and Francoise Toureau .   Marie was 12 years and 7 months at the time of her marriage.   Urbain and Marie had 17 children, 13 of whom reached adulthood.   Urbain Tessier received a land grand in Montreal 10 January 1648 by M. de Maisonneuve.   He was also one of the first 5 colonists to have a child baptized in Montreal. Urbain was taken prisoner by the Iroquois on 24 March, 1661, along with thirteen others. He was liberated on 31 August 1661, minus one or more fingers lost to torture. Ur...