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#1114 – Dick Bernard: Bienvenue Canada, the Trudeaus & French-Canadians

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Much more information about the French in Minnesota available here and here.
What is your heritage? What is your story? Comment/Questions/Stories are welcome: dick_bernardATmsnDOTcom. (For many more stories, simply put the words Collette or Bernard in the search box of this blog.)

Octave Collette and Clotilde Blondeau - 1868 - Minneapolis MN

Octave Collette and Clotilde Blondeau – 1868 – Minneapolis MN


I’m in the midst of updating the index of a small French-Canadian newsletter, Chez Nous, which I edited for 16 years for midwest French-Canadians from the mid-1980s through 1990s.
And four of us from the French-American Heritage Foundation are at mid-point in a four week workshop presentation on our shared French-Canadian heritage.
So the visit of Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his spouse to the Obama’s in the White House this week is a good reminder of the very long connection between French-Canadians and the United States; and a good time for a brief “seminar” on a branch of the French-Canadian family tree very familiar to me: my own family.
It did surprise me to learn that the last such state visit between the two heads of state was about 20 years ago. After all, Canada, the French in Canada and the U.S.have a very long history in North America, going back to the founding of Quebec City in 1608.
Collette Reunion t-shirt, Dayton MN 2002.

Collette Reunion t-shirt, Dayton MN 2002.


My Dad, Henry Bernard, was 100% French-Canadian, born in Grafton, North Dakota, Dec. 1907; graduating from high school there. His father was Honore (always known as Henry) Bernard, immigrant from Quebec ca 1894, carpenter, then flour mill chief engineer; his mother was Josephine Collette, born in 1881 at what was then called St. Andrews, Dakota Territory, where the Park enters the Red River of the North, baptized, and growing up on a farm, near tiny Oakwood.
They married at Oakwood ND’s Sacred Heart Parish in June, 1901. (You can access the Sacred Heart Parish Centennial book here. It is chock-full of French-Canadians. (See Part 2, page 27 upper left corner for “my” Collette’s). Oakwood is “suburban” Grafton – about four miles east.)
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There is plenty of French-Canadian blood in the veins of Minnesotans and midwesterners. The 1980 U.S. census – the last to record such data – showed 7.9% of Minnesotans to have French descent (Wisconsin 7.3%, Michigan 10%).
At minimum, hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans carry some French or French-Canadian lineage.
French-Canadians were true non-native pioneers here, though often unrecognized. Ours seems always to have been a quiet heritage. Yes, there is a story about that, too…for another time. (In the Chez Nous index project I re-noted an article written by University of Minnesota professor William Rogers for an Adult Education journal in 1975. You can read it here: Fr. in MN 1975001)
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Thirteen years ago, members of the Collette family staged a reunion at the historic French-Canadian parish of St. John the Baptist in Dayton MN, and event organizer Vernon Sell of the Minneapolis Collette’s designed the t-shirt pictured in part above.
Every family story is different. The Collette story in some ways is representative of the migration from Quebec to this area; and integration of the French-Canadians in this area.
Briefly: The first Collette came to St. Paul from St. Lambert QC in about 1857; my great-grandmother Clotilde Blondeau and her parents and siblings came to Dayton MN, probably from Ottawa Ont area, sometime shortly after 1850.
Most of the rest of the Collette’s, seven boys and one girl, came to then-St. Anthony, and settled near what is now the St. Anthony Main end of the Stone Arch bridge in Minneapolis about the time the Civil War ended. Octave Collette and Clotilde Blondeau (photo below) married at then-St. Anthony of Padua Parish in then-St. Anthony in 1869.
In 1875 the family moved to the Dayton-Otsego area, where they lived till about 1878, when the first of the group walked to the Red river Valley to take homesteads. Two other girls, by now married, had moved to the area of Oakwood from Quebec. About a dozen Collettes from Quebec had transplanted to Dakota Territory before North Dakota became a state (1889).
(click to enlarge photos)
The Collette men in Oakwood ND 1887 likely after the death and burial of their wife and mother Mathilde. Dad is front left; the Priest is at front right.

The Collette men in Oakwood ND 1887 likely after the death and burial of their wife and mother Mathilde. Dad is front left; the Priest is at front right.


Visitors from Winnipeg to the Henry and Josephine Bernard home in Grafton in the 1920s. The 1901 Oldsmobile still exists, in a Pennsylvania museum.

Visitors from Winnipeg to the Henry and Josephine Bernard home in Grafton in the 1920s. The 1901 Oldsmobile still exists, in a Pennsylvania museum.


1954 photo,Unlabelled photo summer lunch in the farmyard of the homeplace at Oakwood. Apparent identities as known. At right: Bonnie and Maurice Collette; from left Beatrice and Alcide Collette; at end of the table Josephine and Henry Bernard. The others are not known, and the photo is not labelled.

1954 photo,Unlabelled photo summer lunch in the farmyard of the homeplace at Oakwood. Apparent identities as known. At right: Bonnie and Maurice Collette; from left Beatrice and Alcide Collette; at end of the table Josephine and Henry Bernard. The others are not known, and the photo is not labelled.


As happens in families, in time one of the boys, Vernon Sells Grandpa, married, and returned to the Dayton MN area to live the rest of his life with his family in what is now Otsego, between Dayton and the present day Albertville Outlet Mall.
One of the brothers, and two sons of another brother, in the early 1900s, headed north into southern Manitoba to take available land between Ste. Elisabeth and Morris MB.
Another brother moved back across the Red river to Argyle MN. Others moved to other places like the west coast.
So it happened over the years that this family, like so many others, blended into both the United States and Canada, all now speaking English, but the Canadian cousins likely speaking French as their first language at home.
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Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau comes from the French-Canadian tradition, as does his first lady.
Yes, I’m very proud of this heritage.
What are your stories? Check in with us at FAHFminn.org, consider joining our mission to preserve the French in Middle West heritage. Write me at dick_bernardATmsnDOTcom.

#585 – Dick Bernard: Visiting History

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Some months ago a cousin I’d never met in person, JoAnn (Wentz) Beale, wrote from California, suggesting that we get together when she came to an event in her home town of Grafton ND. It was a great idea. Her grandmother, Elize Collette Wentz, and my grandmother, Josephine Collette Bernard, were siblings, raised on the home farm, still owned by Maurice D. and Isabell Collette, just west of Sacred Heart Church in Oakwood. Maurice is the son of Elize and Josephine’s youngest sibling, Alcide.
JoAnn and I spent the better part of an afternoon and early evening visiting the sites of our Collette family history.
It was a most enriching day.
Maurice D showed us around, and JoAnn posed on the site of the Collette home which was occupied from about 1885 till 1978, when Collette’s built a new home just to the south. Here’s JoAnn, June 25, 2012, on the site of the old house. (click to enlarge)

JoAnn Beale on the site of the Octave and Clotilde Collette home, Oakwood ND June 25, 2012


I found a few earlier photos from that same farm yard a few years earlier:

1954 photo, Unlabelled photo summer lunch in the farmyard just to the south of the old house. Apparent identities as known. Isabel Collette probably took the photograph. At right: Bonnie and Maurice Collette; at the end Margaret (Krier) and Alcidas Corriveau; (couple in between not known); at left Beatrice and Alcide Collette; at end of the table Josephine and Henry Bernard. The other persons are not known, and the photo is not labelled.


Alcide and Beatrice Collette with Donald David, in the farmhouse, probably in 1956.


Photo old Maurice D Collette house with new house in background. Photo taken in 1979, looking southeast; new house was built in 1977-78. Old house was torn down about 1981.


JoAnn and I spent time, of course, in and around the magnificent Sacred Heart Church, which is due to be closed within the next two years. I’ve put together a small Facebook album of photographs taken on June 25 here. That’s Maurice D. Collette with JoAnn in one of the photos in front of the church. (The entire Centennial History of the parish, from 1981, can be accessed here.)
I’ve been to Oakwood many times, but until June 25 had never actively sought out the site of the old St. Aloysius School, and found it, at least as represented in the driveway and the flagpole, and the lumber used to build two homes on the site, about a block north of the church. Across the street remains the Grotto. All these are in the Facebook album.
We had a cool drink with Maurice in the tavern across the street from the Church, then took a little tour and back to Grafton.
Before dinner, I took a solitary drive to see the little house at 738 Cooper, the only place I ever knew as my grandparent Bernard’s home.
This time, for the first time in my life, there was no house there.

former 739 Cooper Avenue, Grafton ND, June 25, 2012


It caused me to think back to other photos of other times at that little house down the block from the Court House in Grafton.

Henry and Josephine at 738 Cooper Ave, Grafton, probably early in the 1940s


Grandpa and Grandma on the front porch, probably late 1940s. Here's where they watched the world go by, at least on Cooper Avenue.


Grandma Bernard "myself in the kitchen" at 738 Cooper.


Undated photo of a meal in the living room at 738 Cooper. Note photo of their son Frank Bernard on the wall behind them.


In the last photo, I can’t help but think of the time, at Thanksgiving I think, where Grandpa, among other occupations an old lumberjack, taught we kids how to clean our plates…by licking his own plate clean. My guess is that Grandma Josephine had a bit of advice for him later, but the memory was cemented in our mind. Ah the memories….
Grandpa had an immense amount of pride in his service in the Spanish-American War in the Philippines, 1898-99. Down the block from 738 Cooper was the monument to his unit in that War. Five of his comrades died in a battle at Paete P.I., and apparently two more died shortly after returning home. They are reflected on the monument, which was raised in 1900.
Here is one photo of the monument. A few others are here, on Facebook.

Spanish-American War monument at the Walsh County Court House, June 25, 2012. In front of the monument is a smaller monument to those who served in other wars. Let us work for Peace.


There is a necessary postnote to this post on a family history.

We cannot escape the reality of getting older. The wonderful lady who really helped give me much impetus to begin this family history years ago is very near going into a nursing home at age 92. I visited her on this trip. When I began this journey 32 years ago, she was a huge resource. Now she is completely vulnerable, confused, cannot live alone, and is obviously scared of what is a necessary change for her.
Others who helped with the history have died; still others are very ill.
This trip, and the great meeting with my cousin from California, remind me that if there is work to be done on family matters, now, not tomorrow or next month or next year, is the time to do it. We just don’t know when it will be too late.
Thanks, JoAnn, for the idea of (as my Dad liked to say) “a face-off”!

Winding down after a most enriching day travelling the "roots road": center is JoAnn (Wentz) Beale, at right, Dick Bernard, at left JoAnn's cousin Kasey (Kouba) Ponds. At the Market Place on 8th in Grafton, June 25, 2012