GABOURY, MARIE-ANNE (230 ENGLISH -- )
Marie-Anne fille de (Charles + Marie-Anne Tessier)
n. 1780-08-15 Maskinongé, QC
m.1806-04-21 Maskinongé, QC + Jean-Bte Lagimodière, (Jean-Baptiste)
d. 1875-12-23 St-Boniface, MB
Lignée ancestrale de Marie-Anne
1 - GABOURY, Jacques + Jeanne Beaudoin de Larochelle, FRANCE
2 - GABOURY, Antoine + Jeanne Migneault m. 1678-01-08 Notaire Fillion
3 - GABOURY, Jn-Bte + Madeleine Racette m. 1709-05-01 St- Augustin,QC
4 - GABOURY, Jn-Bte + Elizabeth Cottin m. 1733-02-16 - St-Augustin, QC
5 - GABOURY, Charles + Marie-Anne Tessier
m. 1779-01-06 Maskinongé, QC
6 - GABOURY, Marie-Anne + Jean-Bte Lagimodière
m. 1806-04-21 Maskinongé, QC
Marie-Anne Gaboury
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After an absence of 4 to 5 years from his native land, Jean-Baptiste Lagimodière went back home. He was warmly welcomed; often there were gatherings of parents, friends and neighbors to come and listen to Jean-Baptiste, this bison-hunter, telling about his life in the far-away country of the West. Of course, the girls were very impressed with his adventurous life!
Marie-Anne Gaboury was one of these impressionable girls who listened to his tales. This probably flattered Jean-Baptiste so he decided to court Marie-Anne. She believed that Jean-Baptiste must have had enough of this type of life and would be ready to remain in the Maskinongé region. Jean-Baptiste believed this also…for a while. When the following spring came, it was impossible to ignore the call of the bison-hunt; this was more important than anything else. One evening, he went to Marie-Anne because he wanted to return to these far-away lands. She was wise enough to realize that nothing would stop him, so she decided to marry him and to follow him.
April 16, 1806 Jean Baptiste and his traveling companions, Joseph Paquin, Michel Jeanson and Charles Bellegarde met at a notary’s office to sign contracts. Jean-Baptiste asked them if he could bring his wife, Marie-Anne, and they agreed that he could. Marie-Anne had never traveled more than 20 kilometers in her whole life, and that was to go to Trois Rivières (Three Rivers), PQ.
April 21, was the date of their marriage, and a few days later, Jean-Bapiste had to help load the canoes which required a lot of goods for their needs. Furthermore, Marie-Anne realized that she was leaving her parents, her friends and neighbors and also her religion..
They got into their canoes on the fifth of May for the beginning of their great expedition which would bring them to the Canadian West. Along the way Jean-Baptiste explained all the streams, rivers and water courses and the portages which they’d have to cover for this 2,400 kilometer trip. When they arrived in Fort Pembina south of Winnipeg Lake, Jean-Baptiste and Anne-Marie set up their tent and remained there all winter. For Anne-Marie, she was not with any member of her family and had to spend Christmas and New Year’s Day for the first time alone from family gatherings; instead she had to relive these festivities in her heart. On January 6, 1807 she gave birth in the tent to her first baby, Reine. This baby was the first white girl born in the Canadian West. The name Reine (Queen) was chosen because she was born on January 6, the day of the arrival of the Three Kings at the scene of Jesus’ birth. In Quebec, it was traditional that on the evening of January 6th, a feast was celebrated in each home and a king or queen was crowned for the feast. Poor Marie-Anne, she gave birth alone with Jean-Baptiste, not even one woman at her side; this was far from the festivities she had grown up with.
In May 1807, Jean-Baptiste told Marie-Anne that he wanted to go to Fort des Prairies by the Saskatchewan River. Marie-Anne accepted to go with him; his friends and their native wives also went with Jean-Baptiste.
There, Anne-Marie learned to make pemmican how to scrape and clean bison skins, and how to make cloth. Marie-Anne liked Fort des Prairies where she gave birth to two more children: Joseph whom she nicknamed Laprairie; then a girl, Josette, in 1809. These were the second and third white children born in the Canadian West. Here the Lagimodières spent three years.
In the summer of 1911, they returned to Manitoba to remain there permanently. They settled down exactly where the future city of St. Boniface on the Red River grew. Marie-Anne gave birth to her last child, Benjamin, and then Pauline and Romain.
Finally on July 17, 1818, they had the joy of seeing Fathers Norbert Provencher and Sévère Dumoulin arrive on the shores of the Red River. What joy! Priests and white people. Only a little while later Norbert Provencher baptized hundreds of children born to Catholic fathers, even those of Jean-Baptiste and Marie-Anne. Since Marie-Anne was the only catholic woman known in the immense region named the North-West, Father Provencher asked her if she’d accept to be the godmother of all the newly baptized. (One can find the records of this in the diocese of Quebec.) Marie-Anne was now able to return to her religious practices.
In 1823, Marie-Anne gave birth to Julie, the future mother of Louis Riel. Five years later, a last child was born in 1828 and was called Joseph. The same year her daughter, Reine, married Joseph Lamère and after a flood he decided to go to Sorel, QC to live. All the other children remained in St. Boniface or close to Jean-Baptiste and Marie-Anne and became good farmers and were able to help their own children. During these years when many children died at a very young age, Marie-Anne did not lose one child; they all got married, gave birth to children and had 64 grandchildren. The Lagimodières are related to the Ruels, the Lamères, the Harrisons, the Naults, the Gaudets, the Joyals, the Coutus, the Laflèches and the Gagnons.
On June 21, 1844 four Grey nuns arrived in St. Boniface; this was the beginning of a new era for the white settlers in Canada. One of Marie-Anne’s granddaughters joined the nuns and went to the mission at Ile-à-la-Crosse, the second mission of the Grey Nuns in the West. During this era, Marie-Anne often visited the nuns and brought them food. At this time, Marie-Anne was 63 years old; Jean-Baptiste was 67 and he died in 1855 aged 78; Marie-Anne died in 1875, aged 95.
Louis Riel, grandson to Marie-Anne, always had a great admiration for his grandmother, Marie-Anne. Therefore it was always a special joy for Louis to introduce his friends to his grandmother whom he considered extra-ordinary (and she was!)
In 2006, the descendants of Marie-Anne and Jean-Baptiste organized a special feast to commemorate the two hundredth anniversary of their ancestors’ marriage. The feast was really extra-special and it was estimated that Marie-Anne and Jean-Baptiste could possibly be the ancestors of 50,000 descendants.
Marie-Anne Gaboury was the first white woman in the Canadian West
Marie-Anne Gaboury gave birth to the first white babies in the West; born in Fort Pembina and in Fort des Prairies.
Marie- Anne Gaboury was the first white woman to participate in the bison hunt.
ref: notes of her history (from different sources)
ref: notes of her history (from different sources)
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