Joseph Félix Comeau from descendency from 1875 forwards
Joseph Félix immigrated with his large family in 1875 to Thompson Connecticut. His first six children were boys and he would have 10 boys and 4 girls with his wife Marie Julie Euphémie Legendre. In April of 2012, Massachusetts placed its vital records on-line and became the number two state in the USA for genealogy. This allowed me for the first to not only do ancestor research back in time but also to do descendant research forward in time from a set past point. The year of immigration is the greatest point to start. There is a need to stop before we list living people so it might seem abbreviated.
Joseph and his children would stay together as a family until 1897 when a large group of the Comeau siblings left for New Bedford. To New Bedford went Treflé, Honoré, Louis Phillippe, Adéline, François Xavier, Jacques, and the parents, to Leominster went Édouard, to Woonsocket Rhode Island went Jean Alfred, to Dudley and then to Holyoke went Ferdinand, staying in North Grosvenor Dale were Télesphore Ernest, Désiré, and Marie Anne, becoming a nun in Manitoba was Évangéline, and Frédéric went into the military for many decades.
First and second cousins are possible only through our great grandfather Treflé and his wife Mathildé Touchette. Three of their children had children themselves, Laurent, Dorothée, and Joseph Romeo. Laurent my grandfather would give us out siblings and first cousins. Dorothée would give us the Landreville family as second cousins. Joseph Romeo would have Irene and Edward for children and their children would be our second cousins. Only third cousins are possible through the brothers and sisters of Treflé.
Luckily, one such Comeau third cousin showed up this summer via my on-line family tree. Télesphore Ernest Comeau only lived to 42 years old and when he died his wife Hermine Héloïse Paré went to live with her brother-in-law Édouard Comeau in Leominster. The two families formed a tight bind and essentially became one. One of the sons Honorat Comeau was typical of this family. He married Eva Lillie Vaillette and they had 7 children all sons – Alphonse (1918), Robert (1921), Edward (1924), Homer (1925), Leo (1927), Philip (1930), and Émile (1933). All seven sons would serve in the US Navy – the first five in World War II and the last two in Korea. A picture and story was posted of them last year here. All survived the war and became businessmen afterwards. They are second cousins to our Comeau or Landreville fathers and their children are third cousins to us.
Ferdinand Comeau was the ninth child of Joseph Felix and Julie Comeau. He married Marie Bertrand in 1890 in Dudley and they had 5 children. During the pregnacy with Marie’s last child, she suffered a ruptured appendix and gave birth to Marrion Cécile Comeau prematurely. They both would die that day. Ferdinand would next marry Marie Louise Brunelle and have 5 more children. They would leave Dudley and move to Holyoke Massachusetts in 1908. The large family would live at 23 Sargeant Street until about the late 1960s. Ferdinand would work in just about every mill that Holyoke had searching for the best wage. Most of his grandchildren would move to Connecticut. I thought this was the end of the story for me since I could find little about Ferdinand after 1940. I ride my bike every day and pass through a cemetery when I ride. I often look at the gravestones as I pass them. This November, I spotted a gravestone with Picard / Comeau on the front. I truthfully did not think much of it since there are a few very distant Comeau ancestors around town – three 9th cousins for instance. I went to the back of it and goodness there was Ferdinand Comeau and many of his children engraved there. Ferdinand’s children are our grandfather’s Laurent Comeau’s first cousin. This stone only a mile from my house had about 10 close relatives on it. Ferdinand had lived to 1949 and was 80 years old. One of his daughters Solange Comeau was born in 1904. She married a Picard and hence the other name on the front of the stone. She died in 2005 – lived to 101!
The last that I will write of is Honoré Comeau. He like his brother Felix would marry a Touchette woman – Emma. One of his sons Leonidas was a professional full-time musician in New Bedford his entire life. His only other son was a firefighter in New Bedford – Joseph Louis Raoul Comeau.
Obviously, there are many other tales to tell but a sample is all that is needed. My Pepere Spoor has over 60 living descendents and I am sure that my Comeau side of the family has even more than that. My siblings and I have four pairs of great grandparents but I will have five post and not four. Henley, Spoor, and Brault will have one. The Comeau / Touchette pair will be in two since those families came a long time before the others.