Category Archives: Payment

1881: Elise (Charbonneau) Payment’s blended family

Sixth and last in a series about the younger sister of my French-Canadian ancestor Laurent Charbonneau, who emigrated from Québec to New York State around 1852.

http://collectionscanada.gc.ca/pam_archives/index.php?fuseaction=genitem.displayItem&rec_nbr=3385063&lang=eng
Quebec children at play (date unknown). When they married in 1872, Elise Charbonneau had a daughter and Alderic Payment three sons from their first marriages. By 1881, they had added four more sons and a daughter to their blended family of eleven — a baby boom that surely brought Elise’s schoolteacher skills into play. Photo: Library and Archives of Canada.

When they married in 1872, Elise Charbonneau had a daughter and Alderic Payment three sons from their first marriages.

By 1881, they had added four more sons and a daughter to their blended family of eleven — a baby boom that surely required the helping hands of the older children and likely also brought Elise’s schoolteacher skills into play.

Not only that, but the Payment family had relocated from the Island of Montréal to Notre Dame de Bonsecours in Ottawa (County) — located in the Outaouais region of Québec, north of the Ottawa River, about 70 miles west of their former home.

The 1881 Canadian census for Notre Dame de Bonsecours lists the Payment family with the surname variant Pément and provides a snapshot of their bustling household as excerpted in the table below.

1881 Canadian Census – Notre Dame de Bonsecours, Ottawa (County), Québec, Canada – Page 6, House 34, Family 37 – Source: Library and Archives of Canada

Person Name Sex Age  Occupation
6 Alderic Pément M 42  Cultivateur [Farmer/grower]
7 Elise Pément F 43
8 Louis Pément M 19  Menuisier [Carpenter/Joiner]
9 Joseph Pément M 17  Sous-Cultivateur [Sub-farmer/grower]
10 Alderic Pément M 16
11 Armand Pément M 8  In school
12 Emerie Pément M 5
13 Edouard Pément M 3
14 Ernest Pément M 10/12  Born in July
16 Eliza Bouchard F 22
17 O. Elmina Pément F 7

Such an interesting family — a blend of several families rolled into one. The oldest child is Elise’s daughter Eliza Bouchard, 22 — the only surviving child from her first marriage to the late Olivier Bouchard.

Teenagers Louis, 19, Joseph, 17, and Alderic, 16, are next in line — the three sons of Alderic Payment with his late first wife Marie Olympe Anger.

So daughter Elmina, 7, and sons Armand, 8, Emerie, 5, Eduoard, 3 and Ernest, 10 months would appear to be the children born to Elise (Charbonneau), 43, and Alderic Payment, 42, after their 1872 marriage.

Happier times for Elise Charbonneau

When I began writing about my great, great grandaunt Elise Charbonneau — younger sister of my great, great grandfather Laurent Charbonneau — I kept wondering how her life would turn out.

Losing three children and her first husband in the space of two years was a potentially overwhelming experience for a young woman not yet 30. How would she move on from such a devastating tragedy?

But Elise appears to have mustered an inner strength and looked to the future — becoming a primary school teacher and moving away from her family of origin with her daughter Eliza, then meeting and marrying Alderic Payment, a widower with three sons.

So here at last we find Elise (Charbonneau) Payment in 1881 experiencing happier times in the Quebec countryside on a family farm with a house full of children of all ages — almost is if she had created, with Alderic, her own personal classroom in which to impart the wisdom her life had taught her.

Truly a remarkable woman and one I am proud to have in my family tree!

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