Louis-Edmond Bédard

A memory of Anne Swift:

"Don't remember any of the Scrivens, but i do remember grandma's father pe pere (sic).[Louis Bedard] He lived at the other end of the road, when we lived on Lincoln street. He always wore a straw hat and tie in summer, carried a cane, very dapper (hated Pa)."

The first mention of Louis Bedard in the US Census is in 1900, where, at age 32, he lives on a farm and rents a house in Pownal, Vt. with his wife, Evalina, and six children. He immigrated from Canada, where he and his wife were born, in 1872, and was married around 1887. The children listed were Marcy L Bedard (Jan, 1889), Evaline Bedard (May, 1890--my grandmother), Louis Bedard, Jr (Sept 1891), Emma Bedard (Oct 1893), John Bedard (Aug 1896), Delia Bedard (Dec. 1899--5 mo. old). Only Marcy was born in Canada. He and his wife and children could read, write, and speak English. Their neighbors were the Fowlers and Thompsons, also farmers.

By the 1910 US Census, Louis and the family were living in North Adams, MA on 32 Miner St. Louis was 42 at the time, and had three more children in the preceding decade: Louisa (b. 1892 in VT.), Grace (b. 1894 in North Adams), and Arthur (b. 1896 also in N. Adams). He worked as a weaver in a woolen mill and his oldest three children, now 20, 19, and 16, worked there, too.

For the 1920 US Census, the most significant change is the children still at home, which was now at 50 Cliff St. in North Adams, MA: Delia Bedard, Louise Bedard, Grace Bedard, Arthur Bedard, Louis Bedard, Jr. My grandmother Eveline had been married to her husband, Clarence Scrivens by that time. Marcy, Emma, and John are also gone. There were also two grandchildren living there, Pauline (7) and Louis (almost 3). Louis worked at the Corderoy Mill, and Louise at a shoe shop as a packer, Grace at a cotton mill, and Louis, Jr. as a baker. Their neighbors were the Peltiers and Desnoyers.

By the 1930 US Census, Louis and his wife owned their own home at 50 Gallup St. (a street on which I lived briefly as a child). Louis was now 67 and his wife 63. He still worked at the Woolen Mill. His daughter Grace also lived there with her husband Eli Denno (41 and 15 years older than Grace), and their children, Jeannette (4) an John (2). Their son John, now 34, lived next door at 48 Gallup St. with his wife, Alice (34), and three children: Valmore (5), Eleonora (2), and Jeanne (1/2). Grace worked as a silk winder at the cotton mill and her husband worked at Arnold Print Works as a back-tender (or lender?). Louis' neighbors were the Reads down the street and Sanders up the street.

Finally, for the 1940 US Census, Louis, now 77, and his wife live by themselves at 111 Gallup Street, North Adams as renters, where it is noted they also lived in 1935. At the same address was the Lesage family, Charles and Mary, their 8 year old son, Paul, and four year old Marie Scrivens, who is classified as a boarder. (What that means for a child that age, I have no idea. The Lesages were in their 50's, so maybe Marie is a foster child they took in and raised with public support. Since both Lesage and Louis Bedard are listed as heads of household, this was probably a duplex house of some kind that had been subdivided but not given separate addresses yet. Evalina would die four years later, in 1944, and Louis himself would pass away in December of 1953.

Sources

1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940 US Censuses.

Ste. Hedgewidge de Clifton Wedding Records, 1880-1899, 663-664.