Patrick Henley and Caroline Fournier descendancy from 1880 forwards
When Patrick Henley and Caroline Fournier came to Fall River in 1889, they already had all the children that they would have. Patrick was 55 and Caroline 45 by that time and their oldest son Joseph did not even bother coming with them. That left Elzear as the de facto eldest of the siblings. The Henley family knew the Deschênes family very well in the Gaspe and they seemed to have returned often or wrote letters back a lot. Well at least Elzear must have since he convinced Marie Philomène Pétronille Miville dit Deschênes to move to Fall River and marry him. Besides having a marvellous name, she also had two younger sisters that would move a decade later to Fall River too. But it is the Henley clan that is most interesting.
Elzear and Marie would have 11 children in mill towns around Massachusetts. Eight of the first nine were born in Fall River from 1899 to 1913 but Louis Phillip Henley and his sister Marie Évangéline Lorretta Henley were born in North Adams. It seems that during the 1913 to 1920 period, the entire Elzear Henley family moved to North Adams. By 1920, they are now in New Bedford for a short while and then to Edgartown. It must have been during that short stay in New Bedford that our grandmother Henley met our grandfather Laurent Comeau.
Marie Jeanne Léda Henley, our grandmother, was the first born but she would have 5 younger sisters and 5 younger brothers. Her brother Oran Télesphore Henley would marry Annie Coulie and then two days later they would serve as best man and maid-of-honor at the same church. Oran Henley and Annie Coulie married on Saturday September 12 1925 and then Arthur Barriault and Anna Monnelly married on Monday September 14 1925. Both couples were married at the same church by the same priest but two days apart. Marriages happened on any day of the week and not just the weekends as now. Each couple had stood at the altar for the other couple. An article from the September 18 1925 Martha’s Vineyard newspaper gracefully reports about those two marriages that had happened within the past seven days.
What they did not mention, but what is now known is that the men were related and we Comeau are doubly related to this Barriault.
Arthur Barriault is the step-cousin of Oran Henley. They grew up as teenagers on a farm on Taft Street in North Adams during that 1913 to 1920 period that I mentioned before. Arthur Barriault’s father was Jean Baptiste Barriault who married twice first to a Lalonde woman who died young and then to Leda Henley our common great grand aunt. This is not the Leda that is my grandmother – but rather a daughter of Patrick Henley and Caroline Fournier. Interestingly, my grandfather Laurent Comeau had a cousin that married Marie Alice Barriault in about 1925. This Alice is the sister of Arthur Barriault. So my family is doubly related to Arthur – once as a Henley and once as a Comeau.
The children of Elzear and Marie Henley are the siblings of our Memere Leda, the grandchildren of Elzear Henley are the cousins of our Comeau fathers – among them are children of Oran and Annie Henley – William, Corrinne, Marie, Dorothy, Richard, and Anne. The children of these siblings are our second cousins and I have invited two of them to this group. Since our great grandfather Elzear came with his parents and siblings to Massachusetts, then third cousins are also possible. Patrick Henley brought daughter Élisabeth who married Joseph Duval, son Télesphore who married Marie Posé, daughter Rosanna who married Arthur Duchesne, daughter Leda who married Jean-Baptiste Barriault, Patrick Frank who married Alphonsine McGee, and daughter Léopoldine who married Joseph Deroy. I have only been able to contact one third cousin from this research although there are many more.
Of this group, the saddest story is that of Télesphore Henley and Marie Posé who married in 1898 in Fall River. Their children are Larence, Annorio, Omer, Candia, Edmond, Leona, Leo, and Alice. Eight births but only two of them made it pass the age of 1 year. Fall River experienced incredible population growth in the late 19th century. Its population expanded from 11 thousand to 110 thousand within 60 years. Such growth does not lead to good sanitation and public health officials were very busy trying to detect the location of an outbreak of an epidemic. Influenza, pneumonia, and diphtheria would kill many children each year. The average life-expectancy a hundred years ago was 30 in the USA, but if one could make it past 10 years old, then they could expect to live to 60. The Télesphore Henley family was no exception and actually other immigrant families fared far worse.