BAZIN, PIERRE + MARIE-ANTOINETTE ROUX (214 ENGLISH)
My father, Pierre Bazin, came from a family of 8 children, 4 boys and 4 girls. After his primary schooling in Louvignier-du-Deseert, a small area near de Fougères in the municipality (département) of l’Ille-et-Vilain in France, he succeeded thanks to an uncle to find employment in a Jesuit college in Paris.
There his work was to bring the mail to the college. While doing this, amongst the communications and letters he brought he saw a pamphlet about Canada, Algeria, and Morocco. Seeing that, at that time, he had a very small future in France, he considered trying his luck in a new country, and he chose Canada.
As soon as he could set aside a bit of money, at the age of 19, he set out with his sister, Jeanne. After four weeks on the sea he arrived at Montreal, without one cent in his pockets but got a job as a gardener. This was in the spring, but by fall , having earned enough money to take the train, he left with his sister for Winnipeg and there to St. Léon where he obtained room and board with Father Théobald Bitsche who advised him to go north to see the farming area there.
Leaving his sister at St. Léon, he left on foot through the bush and marshland in search of a homestead. His choice was the NE section 10-07-09 where he settled and started to build a log house and to open and break land, selling the wood if he could get .90 cents a cord. During the fall months, he’d hire on to threshing crews to help the farmers. As soon as he had enough money, he’d send it to his father Joseph Bazin, his mother Jeanne Cottin, and brothers and: sisters Eugène, Jean-Marie, Joséphine, Clémentine and Marie-Louise. A son named Joseph had remained in France and never emigrated.
Once here, my father took a homestead on the quarter section N.W. 2-7-9 and built a house. He died aged 70, in 1906 after having walked from his home in Somerset on business all in one day. That night he went to bed and died suddenly during the night..
Having met a young man from France, his sister, Jeanne got married. Father Théobald Bitsche came from St. Léon to bless their marriage at Mr. Dudoué’s home on the quarter section S.W. 16-07-09, and this was the first marriage in Notre Dame de Lourdes. A few years later, Michel Dudoué sold his farm to Mr. Rivaleau in order for both he and his wife to return to settle in the municipality (dépatement) des Charantes in France. Notre Dame de Lourdes was still not established as a parish and still had no priest.
On August 4, 1891, Father Dom Benoit who had been in this area from France since August 12, 1890, blessed the marriage of Joséphine Bazin, my father’s sister with Alphonse Poitroux at the home of Henri Poitroux. This was the first marriage which Father Dom Benoit blessed at Notre Dame de Lourdes, yet still there was no church. On the 15th of August, 1891, Bishop Taché published the decree which established the parish of Notre Dame de Lourdes.
The rest of my father’s family were married thus: Eugène Bazin with Miss Marie Gautron; Jean-Marie with Miss Marie Massona, sister to a priest or religious brother who’d also come to this area from France; Clémentine with Joseph Bodin; Marie-Louise with Charles Arbez; Joséphine married to Alphonse Poitroux. She died aged 22 in 1892 while giving birth to a child who also died. There were still no doctors in the area. My father’s mother died in 1928, aged 88.
Before his family came from France, the first years, were very hard and stressful, even painful. Before going to his homestead in the autumn he’d work for the farmers in the north of what is now Holland along the Assiniboine River.
In order to receive letters from his family and even to send them some, he’d leave on a Saturday evening after a full day of work, on foot through bush and marsh land without roads to get to Manitou where the post office was in order to get news from his family.
One year around 1895, the crops had been complete failures so finding no work in the area, my father, his brother, Jean-Marie and two other companions, one man named Bonnefoy and the other, Vinsonneault headed south to find work. He left on foot without a cent in his pocket, and one day when he reached the border of the United States and Manitoba, there he asked a farmer for food in exchange for work, any kind of work. The farmer refused. My father was very angry and said, “If you don’t give me work so we can eat, we’ll take it by force.” This made the farmer decide to give him some wood to saw. They sawed the wood, and the farmer fed them. Many days later, still not having found work, but worn out and exhausted, Vinsonneault, the most hefty and vigorously sturdy of the four , when he arrived at the edge of a stream asked his companions to leave him there and to go forward. They did but very reluctantly. They left him and it wasn’t until they reached St. Paul, Minneapolis in the United States that they were able to find work in a brick-making establishment. There they had the back-breaking job of transporting bricks in a wheel-barrow. About 60 years later, my father’s brother, Jean-Marie, received a letter from Vinsonneault with a cheque inside and a note telling Jean-Marie that he was paying the loan he had made on the edge of the stream before the other three left him. (My uncle did not recall lending him any money!) Vinsonneault told him that when they left him on the side of the stream, a priest had found him and employed him as a care-taker/janitor of his church, a position he had kept up until now. In the spring, my father and his two companions went back to continue opening their land.
In 1896, my father married Marie-Antoinette Rioux; they had 5 boys: Louis, Joseph, René, Léon and Marcel.
In 1912, my father had rented out his land; he built a store with Charles Arlez and Joseph Bodin, his two brothers-in-law and with Jean-Marie Baron, a cousin. But things did not go that well due to the fact that he was always advancing money to the farmers until the harvest came in. Then my father’s associates pulled out of the store and my father was left alone until his two eldest sons returned from college and helped him. They took over the succession and my father retired.
My father died on June 9, 1964, aged 94; his wife Marie-Antoinette had preceded him in March 17, 1958. Regardless of the hard and heavy and full life, he never regretted having left the land of his birth.
Ref. Joseph, son of Pierre Bazin
