Tombstone Tuesday - Odile Lessard

Photograph Copyright 2012.

Widow ODILE LESSARD

Died March 15, 1954

at the age of 78 years

A. L'HEUREUX

Odile Lessard was the sister-in-law of my second great-grandfather, Théophile L'Heureux, and the mother of Rosario L'Heureux from my earlier Tombstone Tuesday post.  She was born about 1876 to Louis Octave Lessard and Marie Odile Bilodeau, probably in Saint-Ferréol, Québec, Canada.  On November 3, 1896, she married Alfred L'Heureux (1867-1936), whose name appears on the bottom of this stone.  They had about 15 children together, but only about 5 of those children tops lived to reach 2 years of age.  The first to not die in his infancy was Rosario, who was their sixth child to my knowledge.  Odile Lessard, according to this headstone, died on March 15, 1954, probably in Saint-Ferréol-les-Neiges, where she is buried.

Tombstone Tuesday - Rosario L'Heureux

In August, I went to visit some family in Québec city.  I looked up the locations of certain ancestors' hometowns, hoping I could take a side trip to a town cemetery and find them.  A number of my ancestors and their overwhelmingly-large extended family came from a small town called Saint-Ferréol-les-Neiges, just outside of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré and only about a half hour drive from Québec.

Information on the town's one, small cemetery was scarce online, and it took quite a bit of time googling the town and looking at one of its main roads on Google satellite to determine the precise location.

Saint-Ferréol-les-Neiges is still a relatively small town, but with a significant number of new condo complexes being built up to accommodate the growing ski industry from Mont Sainte-Anne.  When I arrived at the cemetery, I was surprised to see that despite how "new" many of the stones were, it was still, in terms of cemeteries, pretty small and manageable.  I was also pleasantly surprised to open the car door and see that I had parked right alongside a stone engraved with a familiar name, Rosario L'Heureux.

Photograph Copyright 2012.

Rosario L'Heureux is one of my great-grandmother's many first cousins.  He was born in Saint-Ferréol-les-Neiges on May 7, 1903 to Alfred L'Heureux (1867-1936) and Odile Lessard (1876-1954).  Although I don't have a death or burial record for Rosario, I learned from this stone that he died, presumably in Saint-Ferréol-les-Neiges, on March 22, 1971.  

What struck me about this stone in particular is all of the blank space!  Entire families spanning multiple generations are frequently buried together in Québec plots, with each plot having only one stone naming all those buried in that spot.  Was Rosario's wife buried elsewhere?  Are she and any possible children still alive?  What about his siblings or in-laws?  These are all questions that will have to remain unanswered for now.

(Rosario's wife was born in 1914, which would make her about 98 years old if she's still living, which is quite possible.  I omit her name because I have a general policy of not publicly publishing information in my genealogy research about anyone born within the past 100 years to help protect those individuals' privacy.)