Saint-André ancestral family story
Joseph Achim dit Saint-André was born in 1810 in Longueuil, Quebec, Canada. The family name was originally Achim in France in the 1600s but in order to distinguish it from others of the same last name Saint-Andre was added. This is a very typical process and is especially common with members of the armed forces. The word “dit” will mean co-called. 250 years later when they entered America the Achim was dropped. Joseph would immigrate in 1863 with their 6 children and then would have 5 more. They at first went to the French enclave of Chateaugay of New York but after a few years moved to Sutton Massachusetts. Chateaugay was the name of the county that the Saint Andre family had lived for many decades and the town in New York must have been swamped with Quebec immigrants and named by them. Joseph’s first son Joseph Saint-Andre stayed in Sutton as a butcher for many decades. His grandson Ernest Saint-André was the one that initiated the move to Chicopee with the entire family in 1922. Ernest had many sons and thus many grandchildren with the name of St Andre. His son Oliver was near the end of that large family. The family profession had improved from farmer to butcher to mill worker to engineer – normal progression to follow in the developing USA.
Herménégilde Mercier and Philomène Lacoursiere lived in the village Saint-Guillaume in far southwestern Quebec. Their 8th and last child Victoria would immigrate with her mother to North Brookfield Massachusetts where she would meet Ernest Saint-Andre. Victoria’s ancestors for over 150 years had lived in the same village but the mills of New England proved a great economic attraction.
Pierre Firmin Asselin and Marie Blais lived in Saint Charles of Bellechasse County. Their son Joseph Pierre Asselin immigrated at a young age in 1905 to Chicopee. He would marry Exilda Mathieu in 1909 and have five children. They would work many jobs in Chicopee and were part of the rise of that city.
Exilda Mathieu had parents Stanislas Mathieu and Rosanna Bernard from the village Saint-Jude in Sainte-Hyacinthe County. All the above families came from small villages of southwestern Quebec. This is testament to the need to marry someone with the same mentality. Stanislas and his wife brought all 13 of their children from Quebec with them to first Hardwick and then to Chicopee.