Podcast

This week I made a podcast for a class assignment and posted it to my blog. I recorded myself talking about what my Auntie Dot told me about my 3rd great grandmother Lodoisca. Lodoisca was for sure an active member of her community and her family. She served others every day and it seems like she went out of her way to make other peoples' lives easier. In the podcast I talked about her baking pies and bread and sewing clothes and hats for other people. She definitely did not have to do those things and I think she did them because she really cared about the people in her life. It also shows how close-knit her community was. From searching censuses I have found many of Lodoisca's family members living near her. Most of her children got married but only moved down the street from her. I like the idea of a close-knit small town where people talk to each other as they pass each other on the street and where people help each other when someone is sick or in need of anything. Lodoisca is definitely a great example to me.

Why Did They Move?

Lodoisca was born in St. Vallier, Quebec, Canada in 1864. According to the Bristol, Rhode Island 1910 census Lodoisca immigrated to the United States in 1875. So she was about 11 years old when she immigrated to the United States with her parents and siblings. Here is a picture of the 1880 US Federal Census for Warren, Bristol, Rhode Island that has the Dallaire family on it. Justinien is going by "Laurent" and Lodoisca is listed as "Josephine" on the census.

So why did they leave Canada? And why did they move to Warren, Rhode Island of all places?

The answer is that they came to United States because there was work here. Many people back in Canada had large families so all of the family farms had been divided up so many times for the sons of the families that there was not much land left to support anyone. People from the United States came to Quebec and advertised the work that was available in the United States, specifically the textile mills in New England. They needed work so they could enjoy a better life and they came to little old Rhode Island to find it. I'm glad they did and I'm grateful for all that they sacrificed for their families and for the generations that would come after them that they may or may not have even thought about at the time. It must have been difficult to leave a place that was so familiar and go somewhere they had never been before. I owe them a lot.

Here is a link to a site that talks about French immigration to the United States from 1840 to 1950. http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/quebechistory/readings/leaving.htm

The Dallaire House

Above is a picture of the house built by Lodoisca's father, Justinien Laurent Dallaire. Lodoisca's mother's name was Rosalie Blouin and she is the woman in the window on the left second story. This house is at the top of Metacom Ave. and Kickemuit Road in Warren, Rhode Island. There are four apartments in this house. One apartment was for Justinien Dallaire and his family. One was occupied by Malvina Dallaire and Basile Proulx (Lodoisca's sister and her husband). The third apartment was for Justinien's brother Joseph and his wife Eloise Heneault. Not sure who could have been in the other apartment but from this picture it looks like it was not occupied. We believe the house was built by 1880 because the 1910 census says Lodoisca immigrated in 1875 and the 1880 census has Justinien and his family living in Rhode Island. 

As for the rest of the people in the picture, the short man on the top step of the front stairs is Cleophas Aubin and the one to his right is Justinien Dallaire. The other men in the picture are Justinien's sons and the women are their wives. The younger people in the photo are the grandchildren and great-grantchildren. 

Here is a picture of what the house looks like today...

Pretty cool, huh?