A Canadian Family

Paulie “Cat” Lagasse – Slideshow (2/3)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

See also:

Let’s Put Some Meat On The Bones by Peter Lagasse

Paulie “Cat” Lagasse – New Canadian Flash!

March 2, 2011 Posted by Evelyn Yvonne Theriault | . | boxer, boxing | Leave a Comment

Let’s Put Some Meat On The Bones! Paulie “Cat” Lagasse (1/3)

It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Peter Lagasse – an American descendant of Andre Mignier dit Lagace. This is another post in his family history series about his Lagace branch which now resides in Maine. You will find links to his former articles in the  Index: Mignier Lagaces | France/QC/NB.

Guest Post 5:  Peter Lagasse

So often in our research of our roots we gather a collection of names, dates, and places of those that have gone on before us. Our family tree has a collection of skeletons hanging from their appropriate branches swinging in the breeze of times gone by with dates and cities attached. I’d like to encourage you to add some flesh to those bones. Make your ancestors come alive, so to speak. To show what I mean, let me share some of the flesh I have placed on my father’s skeleton of dates and places.

If you were to view my father on our family tree you would discover his character, hardships, and shortcomings. In other words, you would come face to face with a real person who lived a life and doesn’t just exist on a branch of a family tree.

My father did not have an easy life and his personal life played that out. Roland Paul Lagasse born in Les Mechins, Quebec, Canada in 1909 would grow up in a family where holidays were a time to drink and argue. He was only 7 or even younger when his parents divorced and his mother remarried. They were a good Catholic family so these realities were never brought out in the open.

This was clearly shown when his father Joseph Gaudias Lagasse died in 1926 at the age of 41 in the arms of his 17 year old son, Roland, while living in Lowell, Massachusetts. Though his former wife, Marie Agnes Ross, had been married for over 9 years to her second husband the obituary makes it sound quite different as the obituary shows below.

My father would become quite a rebellious young man and will have his first court appearance before he turns 18 with the help of his mother and step-father, Frank Stackpole. They were caught bootlegging in their home in Lowell during the United States prohibition period. The newspaper article tells it all.

TRANSCRIPT –

Sold Rum For His Lodging

Man So Tells Court When He and Two Read more »

March 2, 2011 Posted by Evelyn Yvonne Theriault | . | boxer, boxing | Leave a Comment